


A Memory You Can't Forget

by oriaxcastor



Category: Spies Are Forever - Talkfine/Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alcohol Withdrawal, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Emotional Conversations, Hallucinations, M/M, Suicide Attempt, Torture, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, as the author i can FORCE them to sit down and talk like ADULTS for once, but we can pretend it is, i cant in good conscious call this a fix it fic, i just need them to have a single reasonable conversation, there is way too much baggage here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 33,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23669626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oriaxcastor/pseuds/oriaxcastor
Summary: Owen is dead, and it's Curt's fault.He isn't sure how he was supposed to be dealing with that, but he's pretty sure that this whole "hallucination" thing wasn't it.Owen somehow coming back from the dead to kill him? Not helping.
Relationships: Owen Carvour/Agent Curt Mega
Comments: 50
Kudos: 159





	1. Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> I very much wanted to read this and it didn't exist so I'm making due with the next best thing and writing it myself. No gods, no betas, just whatever this is turning out to be.
> 
> Updates on the way, tags update with the fic.

Curt’s first mistake was ever leaving Owen behind. Curt can think of a hundred other places to start listing his mistakes, but that’s the one that always seems to stick. No matter how many times he tries to rationalize it, to tell himself that staying meant that he would have died too, that the blueprints would have been lost, that a fall like that meant Owen would have likely been dead the moment he hit the ground.... he can never fully get himself to believe it was the right thing to do. 

He doesn’t actually remember leaving the building, not really. Shock is a hell of a thing, and the overwhelming grief and horror certainly didn’t help. Curt only knows for sure what they told him. He had managed to get out of the building and a few hundred yards away before chunks of the facility started collapsing. When Curt didn’t answer his transmitter to confirm he and Owen had escaped and his tracker showed he had stopped moving, Barb had called for an extraction team to try and recover what they could. He had been told that when they found him, he had been sunken down on his knees, totally unresponsive, staring silently at the remains of the facility with tears running down his face. 

Cynthia had described it all to him less kindly, when she tried to question him about what happened. She hadn’t even waited for him to clear medical before coming to scream at him- It hadn’t taken her very long to intimidate and threaten the medical staff into letting her into his room. Curt still wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or the grief that made him start screaming back. 

He doesn’t think he had ever seen Cynthia’s face go that particular shade of red before.

She eventually told him that when he was released, she didn’t want to see his face again until he was sure he had his head on straight and could “do his goddamn fucking job without getting more talented agents killed”. She turned and stormed out of the room, and the part of Curt’s mind that wasn’t spiraling into another round of hysterics took a moment to be impressed with however Cynthia had managed to keep the medical staff away. It was hard to be sure over the blood rushing in his ears and the loud, gasping breaths that were coming faster and faster, but he was _sure_ the monitors weren’t meant to be making those sounds. 

He had slipped the forms for his indefinite leave of absence in with the AMA discharge papers. Cynthia was blunt and harsh, but Curt couldn’t deny that she was right. 

After everything he and Owen had been through, every mission they had survived, every enemy they had faced, every tight situation and every blown cover that the two of them had shot their way out of, and Owen died because of him. Curt had been too confident, too cavalier. Owen had paid for his carelessness.

It would have been better if Curt had stayed behind to die with him. If he had done anything, tried to get them out, had turned back time and just listened to Owen rather than thinking he knew better. At least if he had died, he wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt. 

At least then he wouldn’t be facing down living the rest of his life without Owen. 

Mistake number two caught up with him slowly, but by the time he even realized what he had done, it was too late to even try to fix. Curt ran, burning as many bridges as he could so he could just be alone to grieve, and when he looked back to see if anyone had come after him, he found himself totally alone with the ashes. 

He had thought at first that he could stay with his mother, but even if her safehouse would be a reliable place for him to lay low, just the thought of her asking about work or about Owen was enough to make him feel sick. The idea that eventually she would start asking him why he never brought anyone home was too much for him to even think about. He couldn’t. It was easier to run. There were a few humble places he could disappear to for a few years, and enough money saved up to keep him afloat without much effort. 

He wasn’t sure exactly why the loneliness got to him so deeply. It’s not like anyone had ever asked him if he was ok, not anyone who truly meant it. People wanted to know if he could do his job, if he could fake a smile or seduce the mark or go back in the field before he had been cleared by medical. He had received plenty of condolences and well wishes when he had first woken up, but none of them felt genuine. Those were for Special Agent Mega, not for Curt. 

No one knew what Owen meant to him, what they had been to each other. Everyone thought he would move on. They expected he would take some time to mourn and readjust, and then he would be right back in the field with a new partner. He was a spy. That was the job, and he and Owen had both known the risks. He never bothered to answer any of the messages the agency passed onto him. He didn’t have anything to say that any of them would want to hear.

A month passed, and then two, and then six, and Curt still hadn’t managed to get a smile to sit on his face quite right. He started getting a lot less questions about when he was coming back. After a year, the ‘when’ became an ‘if’. Eventually, the questions stopped coming at all. 

He told himself that he wouldn’t go back until he could do what Cynthia had told him and get back to work. He wouldn’t go back to the agency until he knew for certain that he could hide his feelings and bury the grief deep, deep down where no one else would ever see it, save maybe his reflection in a hotel mirror, late at night. He never seemed to manage shoving everything down quite far enough. No amount of faked charm and confidence ever seemed to hide the pain behind his eyes. 

Curt had expected things to get better. He supposes he can count that as mistake number three. It was weeks before he could reliably manage to get himself out of bed at all, longer before he could bring himself to eat anything he had to spend any energy cooking. He isn’t really sure how he managed to make it through those first few weeks, considering how impossible he found it to get out of bed and how much there was lying around his house that made him shut down completely. It was months before he could stand to even look at a gun or his suit or.... anything, really, that brought up the memories of Owen. 

After a while, surviving got easier, but living seemed more impossible than ever. He had tried to shut away everything that he thought might trigger his memories, but it ended up being an agonizing and pointless process. His mind drifted towards Owen on its own; what he would have said, what he would think of Curt now, of a mission they had done together, of the nearly unbelievable stories Owen had told him late at night about the missions Curt hadn’t been a part of.

He thought of the plans they had made, of the secret they shared, of whispers stolen in rooms they had double and triple checked for bugs beforehand. 

Curt hadn’t fully realized exactly how significant Owen’s presence had been in his life, of how much space he had taken up in his heart, until he was gone. It was too much to bear, to see a future that had always seemed like an impossible pipe-dream be shut down so finally. 

Owen had never liked when Curt drank, or how much, and Curt had... not stopped, but certainly tried to cut back. Sometimes he wanted the heat and the extra courage that came with the flask, and sometimes he needed the comfortable haze after a mission that had gone badly. 

There was no Owen to stop him now. 

A glass became two, became four, became the bottle, became... whatever he could find in the house before he passed out. Whatever it took to make the world quiet, for just a moment. The alcohol didn’t stop him from thinking about Owen, but Curt found it was harder to hurt at the bottom of a bottle. He decided early on that he would rather live with blackouts and a hangover than with the memories and the unending nightmares. 

He thought he had finally reached the bottom. He had already lost everything. His job, his life, his confidence, his future, his partner. He thought there was nothing else he could possibly lose. 

Then, Curt lost his mind.

The first time Owen appeared, Curt didn’t even realize what had happened. He saw Owen every night, and he had been drinking enough that him having already passed out was just as likely as him being really awake. He could tell he was close to blacking out- it had been a bad day, and he had managed to find some of the good vodka the last time he went out. He had been trying to pour another shot when he glanced up to see Owen leaning against the wall, shaking his head and looking disappointed. Curt vaguely remembered slurring that if all Owen was going to do was stand around and be disappointed in him, then he shouldn’t have made Curt love him so much. By the time he had finished the shot, Owen had been gone again. 

It wasn’t until he woke up the next day that he started to wonder. The Owen that lived in his nightmares was never so quiet. Or intact. 

He would have written it off as a dream or his imagination or the admittedly dangerous amount of alcohol he had been drinking, if it hadn’t kept happening. The dreams he could handle. Nightmares faded, and they faded faster when he was too drunk to remember his name. There was a consistency to them. 

He would dare to go to sleep and he would watch an endless loop of Owen slipping and the railing giving way, of Curt just missing him as he fell, of seeing Owen hit the ground, of the sound it made, of the blood slowly starting to pool around him. He would have dreams of staying and going back, only for Owen to be dead already. Worse, going back only for Owen to curse him and die hating him, or to tell him it would be all okay and have Owen die in his arms. 

Unlike the nightmares, the visions were random. Fleeting. Curt could never figure out exactly what caused them, even when he became desperate enough for one more look to try and trigger them himself. The hallucinations never lasted long, too often triggering flashbacks on their own, and they were just infrequent enough to always catch him off guard. It was unpredictable, and despite his attempts to mentally prepare for them, he froze up every time he caught a glimpse of Owen leaning against a wall or heard the echoes of his voice ringing in his ears. 

It felt like punishment, but as much as it hurt to see Owen, Curt preferred the visions of the man alive and whole to the dreams of him broken on the ground or falling just out of reach. 

For all anyone might have said, Curt wasn’t stupid. He knew that it wasn’t a good sign, to be seeing things and hearing voices. But he also knew that if he were to tell anyone, they would try to fix it. They would try to take Owen away, and Curt wasn’t sure if he could survive losing Owen twice, even if all he had now were hallucinations. 

His fourth mistake was deciding not to tell anyone. 


	2. What You Want To Hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This got uh... way longer and more intense than I expected. Heed the tags, please.

It took several months of denial and then several more months of half-hearted attempts to stop himself from hallucinating before Curt accepted that there wasn’t anything he could do but endure it. He figured that if his punishment was having to see Owen every now and then, he could have done worse. He had heard enough horror stories of soldiers and agents who had come back from the field traumatized and in shock, and you didn’t hear from most of them after that. Not as agents, anyway. 

Curt didn’t think about the fact that technically, he wasn't an agent anymore either.

In the end, living with the hallucinations had been more manageable than he had expected. It took the better part of a year to stop himself from shattering glasses on the floor and dropping into fight or flight every time he realized he was less alone than he thought. He had managed to cut the habit of throwing whatever he might have been holding at Owen when he appeared, at least. It took a moment before ‘someone is here’ clicked in his head to ‘Owen is here’ and froze him up. Actually seeing Owen always made Curt feel like the wind had been knocked out of him. Even after a year, he could never quite believe it.

Whatever vision his mind had conjured of Owen seemed to be made from the better memories. There wasn’t hatred there, at least. The worst that ever seemed to happen was that Owen would give him a sad look, or tell Curt he hated it when he drank so much, or that Curt really shouldn’t be shutting himself up and wasting away. The visions never seemed to last long- minutes, at most- and Curt was always a little bit afraid to look away, just in case it would be the last time. If this was all he could have, he would indulge in it while he could. 

On rare occasions, he didn’t even realize Owen had appeared until the vision had already ended. There was something about seeing Owen walking through the rooms of his house or lying on the couch reading that seemed normal. He had caught himself several times, half lost in thought, calling out if Owen needed anything and turning to be met with silence and a now empty room. Those moments were almost more painful than the nightmares. They had never gotten a chance to be domestic, and the closest they had ever come was sitting together, arguing over plans for their next mission. 

He didn’t like to think about what they lost, even if it seemed like they never would have had it to start with. 

The only time he ever really got himself into trouble was almost exactly two years into his leave. It was nearing the anniversary, and it felt like Owen was appearing more often. Or maybe it was that Curt was drinking more often, and the hallucinations had never really liked that. It didn’t matter why. What mattered is that Curt was sick of Owen telling him to stop drinking and watching him from across the room with that _look_ and giving little sighs every time he finished off a bottle. It wasn’t as if Curt didn’t know by now, but Owen didn’t get to judge how he was coping. He was dead, and if Curt had to choose between drowning in guilt or in alcohol, he’d take the booze. 

The anniversary of Owen’s death was the start of it. He hadn’t gone an hour without a drink in his hand, and it was starting to get dark. He wasn’t sure if it was good luck, bad luck, or that he hadn’t been able to walk in a straight line since before he woke up that had kept Owen away all day. Curt knew it was only a matter of time, but for the first time since he started hallucinating, he wasn’t actually sure he wanted to see Owen right now. He knew he wouldn’t want Owen to see him, at least. 

Curt had been pulling down a new bottle when Owen finally appeared. He felt it before he saw him, an electricity running through him as Curt realized he wasn’t alone anymore, and he exhaled shakily as he turned around. 

“I was wondering if you were going to show up today. I almost hoped you wouldn’t.”

“Curt. Put that down before we’ll have to hold a funeral for you too, dear.” Owen’s voice drifted softly across the room. “You’ve had enough.” 

“You’re dead. I don’t think you get to decide how much is enough for me to drink right now.” Curt scoffed. “In fact, now that you’re here I think I might need a second one of these.”

Curt turned to the cabinet and startled back a step as Owen was suddenly next to him, arms folded.

“You know you can’t keep doing this. This isn’t just a drink or two to calm the nerves, love.”

Curt scowled, slamming the bottle down on the counter. 

“You think this is what I _wanted_ , Owen? To drink so much you have to stage whatever bullshit intervention this is? You aren’t even here. You’re dead, because I killed you, and I’d really like it if you could vanish again so I can drink this whiskey and forget for another night.”

Owen didn’t vanish, unhelpfully leaning back against the counter. 

“So you forget tonight. And what about every other night? Curt, I know you don’t want to live this way. Put it down before you find out that you can’t.”

“You think I can’t stop?” Curt accused. “You think I’m addicted?” 

Owen shifted uncomfortably. “I think you will be if you keep doing this. You aren’t fixing anything like this, and you won’t get any better drinking yourself to death. You have to cut back. There are other ways to move on, ways that don't end up with you killing yourself.”

Curt felt the fight leaving him as Owen kept talking. He never spoke this much. He certainly never sounded so genuinely _worried_. It wasn’t a tone that Curt had heard in years, not this genuinely.

“This is... you aren’t even real.” Curt rubbed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “You just say what I want Owen to tell me.” 

Curt looked at the bottle sitting on the counter. 

“And you’re telling me to quit. Okay. Let’s...” Curt exhaled shakily. “I’m Special Agent Curt Mega. I can do this. I _want_ to do this” Curt glanced back up to where Owen was still watching, and then to the sink behind him. “We’re doing this.”

He hadn’t expected it to be quite so difficult to pour out the bottles he still had lying around. Owen actually stuck around through the process, and Curt couldn’t decide if he was comforted by the hallucination’s moral support or if he was irritated that Owen kept appearing next to the places where he ‘forgot’ he had stashed a bottle. 

He decided the feeling had been irritation when Owen gave him a pleased look and vanished as he was pouring the last of his alcohol down the drain. Curt looked around the house he had torn apart and sighed, tired and desperate to just have the day be over. He fell into bed and woke the next morning, relieved that had been, for once, a dreamless sleep.

The feeling didn’t last long.

Curt took longer than he would have liked to notice. He had expected a hangover, and considering how much he had had the night before he had expected a bad one. The nausea and the headache were to be expected. It wasn’t until later that day when he set about righting the mess he had made the night before that he noticed his hands were shaking, ever so slightly. Curt was confused. His hands didn’t shake- not from nerves, not from a hangover, not from anything. He tried to ignore it and choke down the panic. It was stress, just... he was worried about staying sober. That had to be it. 

By evening, the shaking had gotten worse and Curt couldn’t deny what was happening. 

He wasn't sure how long the withdrawal was going to last, but he was sure he wouldn’t be able to do anything but ride it out. He took a moment to regret how dedicated he had been to actually dumping everything. He couldn’t even properly blame Owen for pushing him into it. 

Curt tried to prepare the best he could, bunkering down in his room and waiting in dread for it to pass. He tried to sleep, but he couldn’t manage to relax enough, his breath too shallow and his heart beating too frantically in his chest. He swore there was something else moving in the dark, something that wasn’t just shadows or his visions of Owen. He couldn’t bring himself to lay still and close his eyes, even knowing there would be nothing in the house when he checked. 

When light first creeped through the blinds and Curt still hadn’t managed to get any sleep, he pulled himself out of bed and began tearing through the house again, hoping that he had somehow missed something, anything. He knew he hadn’t. He had been acting like sweeping the house for alcohol had been his damn mission, he knew he wouldn’t have left anything behind, especially when he had been trying to show off his restraint and self-control for a hallucination, of all things. 

“I’ve been warning you for months, love. I told you to stop drinking, and you didn’t listen, just like you didn’t listen to me when I was alive. Now look at you.” 

Curt jumped when he heard Owen’s voice. There was something off about it. Something new. Something dangerous. He couldn’t be sure if it was really there, or just something added in by the fever.

“It’s your fault, you know.” Owen walked across the room towards him, sitting down on the chair in the corner and looking over at Curt coldly. “I’m sure you _do_ know already, but I want to be perfectly clear here.”

“Owen, I...”

“No, I’m certain I don’t need to hear it. You killed me because you wouldn’t listen, there’s not really an apology that makes that better, darling.” 

Curt flinched. He heard a disbelieving laugh come from across the room he wasn’t sure he was actually meant to hear. Owen wasn't... His hallucinations weren't like this. This was wrong. Something was _wrong_. Owen settled down, apparently planning to stay, and opened a book Curt was sure hadn't been there a moment before. 

“Don't look so worried, Curt. You’re going to get through this." Owen glanced over at him, appeasing. "It’s going to be awful. But you’re going to get through it, and maybe next time you’ll actually listen to me the _first_ time I tell you something.”

Owen was, as usual, right. 

It was awful. 

Curt felt like he was going to die. The only constant seemed to be that Owen, somehow, was always there. Not even doing anything, just... present. His hallucinations had never stuck around before, they had never interacted so much with the world around him. It was disorienting, to see Owen walking around and looking through things as Curt was feverish and curled up on the floor. For a moment, he could almost forget that Owen was dead, and that he was alone, and that he had fucked up monumentally, again.

Only ever a moment. 

It was during a rare moment of clarity, somewhere far enough into withdrawal that time had stopped meaning anything, that Curt went over to his closet and started to dig out his old things. It didn’t take him too long to find what he was looking for, and he went out to the living room and set the box down on the table. Curt tried to ignore the weight of Owen's eyes following him across the room. 

“What do you even think you’re doing, Curt?” Owen sat across from him, a patronizingly amused look on his face as he watched Curt pulling everything out. “I can’t imagine how a gun is going to make any part of this any better. It’s not like you can kill me twice, and we’re the only ones here, love.”

Curt didn’t look at him as he loaded a bullet into the chamber of the revolver, snapping it shut and spinning the barrel. 

“Oh, I see. Do you honestly believe that dying is going to make anything better? It’s quite the permanent solution, my dear. As someone who’s already dead, I can tell you with confidence- there’s just pain, and then nothing. Or rather, betrayal, and pain, and nothing”

Curt held the gun under his chin with shaking hands, shutting his eyes against the pounding headache. 

“Russian roulette isn’t the way people who actually want to kill themselves go about things. If you really meant it, you wouldn’t have bothered spinning the barrel at all.”

Curt took a breath and tried to steady himself, the gun digging into his chin. When Owen’s voice came next, it was right beside his ear, and he swore he could feel the warmth of a hand pressing on his shoulder. 

“Go ahead, love. Pull the trigger. That chamber’s empty anyway.”

Curt yanked the gun away from himself, feeling tears start running down his face. 

“What do you want, Owen? What could you possibly still be here for?” Curt said as he scrubbed the tears away. “I’m not wor-... What else is left for me?”

“Why am I here?” Owen laughed. “Curt, I’m _not_ here. I don’t _want_ anything. You saw to that, didn’t you. You’re right, you aren’t worth it. Not like this, at least. What happened to the spy I fell in love with? It couldn’t possibly be you.”

“Owen just st-”

“No! I’m not going to stop, this is _never_ going to stop! This doesn’t go away, Curt. You can’t run and hide from this, you can’t drink it away and make everything better again! Look where you’ve gotten yourself. The great Curt Mega, shaking and hallucinating his dead lover in some forgotten safe house in the middle of nowhere. Some heroic spy you make now, love.”

“Please, please stop.”

“Stop what, Curt? Telling you the truth? You know I’m not real! You conjured me up because you can’t bring yourself to accept that _you killed me_ , Curt. It was your fault, because you thought you knew best.”

“Owen I-”

“You can’t tell me you don’t think so too. You said it yourself. I only tell you the things you would want the real Owen to tell you. I’m not telling you anything you don’t believe. I say all the things you’re too afraid to admit.”

Owen got up violently, and Curt flinched at the sudden movement. He watched Owen start pacing around the room, looking more disheveled and wild than he had ever been in life. 

“You want to hear it so badly you had to hallucinate me to do it for you. Typical. Here’s the truth, love. It’s all your fault, Curt. It always was, and it always will be. You just can’t help it. It’s your fault I’m dead, and I will never be able to forgive you for killing me. For _leaving me_ there to die alone. It is all. Your. Fau-”

Curt felt his heart stop when the shot went off. He just wanted it to stop. He hadn’t.... He didn’t.... He hadn’t meant to... Owen had told him the chamber was empty. It was supposed to be empty. 

Across the room, Owen had lost the wild look in his eyes, and glanced over at Curt with something more like pity. 

“Oh, Curt. Aiming for the heart, that’s a bit on the nose, isn't it?” Owen said, glancing down at his chest and then the room behind him. “I’m not sure how you’re going to explain the bullet hole in the wall, love.”

Curt stared at the vision of Owen, a red stain slowly spreading across his chest that he seemed not to have noticed. 

“I shot you." Curt whispered. 

Owen stared at him, apparently surprised he had said anything. “You did.”

“There wasn’t supposed to be anything in the chamber. I shot you.” Curt heard the rush of blood in his ears and felt the revolver drop out of his hand. “I would have killed you again. Oh god, I would’ve shot you, I... I don’t...”

Curt looked up at Owen, hysterical. “You said it wasn’t loaded. I would’ve died, the chamber was loaded, you told me.... You told me...”

Owen crossed the room and crouched in front of him, red stain still spreading, blood drops disappearing just as they would have hit the floor. 

"You're in shock again, love. You're still in withdrawal, you're panicking. Breathe. You're fine. I'm as dead as always. There's no one here to hurt but yourself."

Curt's eyes darted around the room, pausing for a moment on the bullet hole in the wall before going back to Owen's face. It still wasn't quite right. The eyes were too empty, like he couldn't quite manage to put in the effort to fake the sincerity. 

"I told you it was empty because I knew you wouldn't take the shot. I know you." Owen stood up and finally seemed to take notice of the bullet hole in his chest. "You wouldn't end your story like that, you couldn't let your reputation take the hit."

Owen tugged at the stain, and Curt watched as it vanished and he seemed whole again. 

"You're going to get through this. You'll survive, and maybe even one day you'll manage to be something like the man I loved."

Owen smiled. Something about it made Curt feel sick.

“You just need to find a reason."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was meant to be a lot more here but I have written way too much, and there's way too much emotion happening here to keep going. Withdrawal is a hell of a bitch, do not quit drinking cold turkey or without support and medical assistance. I'm playing fast and loose with symptoms here, but shit's bad.
> 
> EDIT 4/18: I've added and reworded some things at the end of this, I was a bit unhappy with how everything came across, probably because it was 5am and I had been doing this literally all night. The hallucinations during the withdrawal are more active and more aggressive, for a couple reasons. More content with this now.


	3. A Spy is A Spy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally here, the last chapter before we kick off the show!

Going through withdrawal was as good a wake up call as any. Curt knew that he wouldn’t survive it again, especially not if it ended up being worse a second time. He had been out of it for days, and the hallucinations had been much, much worse. Owen had rarely ever been angry at Curt, not really, but Curt knew he had had a vicious streak. It had served them well when they needed to get information, and Owen had always been better at interrogation than he was. He supposed his mind had felt it was finally time to conjure those memories back up. 

It had taken several days for Curt to feel stable enough to go out and find something to take the edge off. 

Owen never left. 

His company had been... unpleasant.

Curt wasn’t ready to stop drinking, and if he was being honest he wasn’t even sure he was willing to try, but he also knew he had to do something. Even years later, his mind felt like a field of barbed wire, lying in wait and impossible to navigate safely. Withdrawal was a looming danger, but the memories never left. Cutting back and hoping for the best was the only option he had left. 

His first attempt was half-hearted at best. It was too easy to take the edge off of a bad memory, to pour more than he should have, to have just one more to calm his nerves. One would end up as two, and there was the bottle he had stashed away in case something happened and the withdrawal hit again, and then he would wake up the next morning, hungover and hating himself. 

Curt had properly locked up his gun, at least. He was uncomfortable not having it to hand, but if no one had come after him in two years, it seemed like the best idea was to keep it- and everything else he had hoarded away- locked up and secure.

Somewhere safe enough where he couldn’t get the gun and get it loaded if he... where he couldn’t get to it without some difficulty. 

He slept a little better that night.

Somewhere in year three Curt seemed to have figured out a good balance of ‘sober enough not to cause himself more problems’ and ‘drinking enough to not wake up screaming from the nightmares’ that had been suiting him decently. He still couldn’t look at himself in the mirror without the tide of screaming guilt rolling in, but the beard that he had finally given up on shaving was enough to pretend for a moment that he was someone different. He couldn’t quite convince himself that it was a good look, but it wasn’t what Agent Mega looked like, and Curt was willing to look a little stupid if it helped to clear out his thoughts.

It was all just a little easier than it had been before. The times when he could think about... anything, really, without the pain washing over him were slowly becoming more frequent. He had thought that it would be more difficult to adjust, but he found it was easier than he had thought to keep himself out of the loop.

Curt had never liked deep cover or the longer, slower, more boring parts of his missions. He had never really had the patience to sit around and pretend that he was normal. If he had wanted to be a civilian, he wouldn’t have ended up as a spy. It wasn’t a profession that well adjusted people tended to find themselves in, and Curt had never really thought he would ever be able to leave it. 

Curt knew how things really looked on the other side. Too often it seemed that international relations hinged on who ended up with the right document at the right time and who was standing on the right side of a gun. The constant back and forth and all of the impossible political bargaining was all simplified and fed to the public in sensational little pieces. No one wanted to know how they won, only that they were winning. No one cared what happened to the enemy, so long as they seemed appropriately villainous.

He had felt powerful, knowing so much more about how things worked than the people he would pass by on the streets. Curt hadn't expected the other side of the picture to be so easy. He hadn't expected himself to be able to adjust.

He supposed he had never expected to lose someone he cared about, either. It wasn’t as if there had ever been anyone serious, and even the thing that he and Owen had still felt young, considering how difficult it had ended up being to actually work together. Different agencies, different governments, different spheres of influence... The times when MI6 actually agreed to work with the secret service and the times that Curt and Owen actually ended up being the agents chosen for the joint missions were rare. They had tried to make something happen outside of work, but it had always come second. 

Curt had never considered how much losing Owen would hurt. He hadn’t realized how much he had wanted something more. It had felt like they were on top of the world. It felt like the two of them were unstoppable, that they would be spies forever. He didn’t ever think that they would run out of time, even knowing the job was dangerous. It hadn’t ever crossed his mind that they wouldn’t get the chance to figure everything out. 

It was hard to envision being a spy again, knowing Owen wouldn’t be there with him. 

It was easier to just not think about what he was going to do at all.

It wasn’t until Curt first heard the news about the U-2 mission being shot down over Russia that he gave returning to the agency any real thought. When Curt had filed for a leave of absence, he had meant it; he never intended to be a civilian forever. He had expected to feel better sooner, to be more like his old self again. He had taken years to grieve, and it still felt raw. He wasn’t sure if it would ever heal. Going back had always seemed like something he had time to do later.

It was becoming harder and harder to justify keeping himself off the field when he knew he had been a valuable asset. If things were going badly enough to make global headlines, he couldn’t imagine the mess that had to be happening behind the scenes. 

Curt knew that one single agent- as good as he might have been- would be unlikely to change the course of the war. It was rare that the prize from a single mission or the fallout from a person of interest captured or otherwise... handled... would end up making a significant impact on its own. It was a war of attrition, and while everything added up over time, the attacks themselves had to be more subtle. 

Curt wasn't sure he was ready, but if he was called back, he realized he wanted to say yes. 

He missed the man he used to be. He missed being sure of who he was and what he was doing. He missed feeling like he was doing something worthwhile, that he was actually making a difference and serving some purpose. He misses the adrenaline, the excitement. 

Agent Mega seemed like an entirely different person these days, and Curt desperately wanted to be able to be that person again. He was sure that it would be a hell of a lot better than being whoever he was now. 

In the end, getting the gun back out was both easier and harder than he expected. It felt heavier than before, but there was no gunshot ringing in his ears. 

Curt took a breath. He could do this. 

Since the withdrawal incident and his ongoing attempts to cut back on his drinking, the hallucinations had also seemed to cut back a bit. He felt like he still saw Owen plenty, but he didn’t seem to appear with the same frequency or for as long as he had in the first two years. Curt knew that the second of hesitation and distraction that seeing Owen still caused would be enough to get him killed- or worse- but Owen had never appeared when Curt was at the range.

Curt took it like a kind of approval.

The only thing he really had to fight to overcome were his own flashbacks, but Curt was just relieved that the hallucinations didn’t seem to be making things actively harder. Flashbacks he could at least explain, if anyone noticed. 

Reacquainting himself with using a gun and trying to get back into shape was entirely different from actually contacting Cynthia about going back to work. She had been furious that it had taken four years for him to actually contact her and come back, but considering how quickly she had called him in for an evaluation and a field assessment, Curt knew she either missed him or needed another active agent too badly to stay angry. 

Considering she had practically thrown the brief at him as soon as his results came back and shuffled him off to Budapest, he guessed it was more of the second than the first. He knew he couldn’t have possibly matched his results from before he had left, but Curt was thankful that he had been needed badly enough to go back right away. He expected that there would have been a lot more yelling if he had actually needed to stay for more than a handful of hours. 

Curt expected everything to just snap back into place when he got back into the field. He thought that as soon as he was back in a suit that things would just come naturally to him again, for that confident personality to slip over him and make everything feel normal. Curt was surprised when it didn’t. Spying had never felt like a struggle before. He had never felt so nervous or clumsy when he was doing a job, and he had never had to talk himself into doing something. He had just jumped in and gotten himself back out of whatever situation he was sent to face. 

The informant knowing about Owen just felt like another slap in the face. He knows he should have expected something, but somehow he hadn’t thought about the rumors that would have ended up circulating in his absence. He knew how it looked, for him to disappear for years after Owen died. There weren’t a lot of reasons anyone came back. Most people who ended up out of the field for years weren’t able to. To have Owen die with the only records being sealed immediately, followed by his long disappearance... it was suspicious at best. 

He really should have expected the talk.

He had been ready for the flashbacks, for a hallucination, but not for people to know. Or to insinuate that they knew more than they did, which was really a good ninety percent of the spy business anyway. He hadn’t expected people to _ask_ him about it. 

Curt watched as the informant cleared out the building before going over to the bar and pouring himself a shot. He could already tell he would need something to steady his nerves. He had come back because he knew that America needed to have good men on the field now, rather than later. He had told himself that he needed to do this, that there would never be a better time. 

He glanced over at the empty chair at his table. Owen hadn’t shown up since before he had read the briefing on the flight over. He would’ve laughed at him, if he were here. If he were _really_ here. Owen had hated staying still just about as much as Curt had, even if he had been better at hiding it. He never would have questioned getting back to work. 

Curt looked at the whiskey still sitting on the table. 

This wasn’t something he could afford to mess up. Uncertain or not, he had to get this done right. 

He had a bomb to steal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weird timing on this one, later than I'd have liked, but I really wanted to get this time skip over with and have it read decently. There's only so much I can work with here considering the original plan was to have all of this in Ch 2. 
> 
> Thank you all for the comments and the kudos, I feel very Seen right now.
> 
> Ch 4 is blocked out, but is as of right now, notably longer than these chapters have been, and I'm reluctant to cut it into parts. Ideally it will be up on or by 4/24, but it's possible it could be as late as 4/28 since I work weekends.


	4. Turnabout is Fair Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Act I, my old friend. How've you been?

Cynthia was going to kill him. 

He had been pacing in the hall, building up the courage to knock, knowing he was about to be chewed out. He missed six shots point blank, had his gun taken from him, got _unbelievably lucky_ when the clip was down those two last shots, and after all the trouble he went through, he didn’t even have the bomb to show for it. 

Curt glanced at the door, wincing. 

At least he knew where that woman was headed. He could have done worse, and he hadn’t gotten himself killed, even if it had been closer than he might’ve liked. All he had to do was get through this meeting, get his kit from Barb and her team, and he could get on his flight.

He just had to get through the meeting. 

Cynthia had already seen the mission report, and Curt knew she was going to throw something at him because she had waited a couple days for him to return stateside and sit around before he was debriefed. 

It had given him plenty of time to berate himself, and he had run over everything in his head a hundred times. He hadn’t frozen up, he hadn’t hallucinated, he had just been... afraid. He had been nervous, and he had taken too long, and he let himself be caught off guard by the Russian. And then on top of that mess, Santos and the buyer... they had known who he was right away. 

Curt knew that for a secret agent, his identity wasn’t really all that secret. He had been loud and flashy, and he had certainly gotten in the way of a lot of plans over the years. He knew he had plenty of enemies, and he knew he would be fairly recognizable to anyone who had been in the game four years ago. Santos knowing who he was wasn’t a shock. But the buyer... 

People who tried to kill him _that_ quickly usually had already been trying to kill him or had some sort of grudge. Curt was sure that he would have remembered something if it had been some old mission to come back to haunt him, but he kept coming up blank. It was unsettling, especially considering he had gotten away as well. 

One more problem to add to the pile. 

Curt looked over at the door. A problem that could wait. He had been sulking in the hallway for long enough.

Cynthia’s disappointment was easier to deal with than he expected, though he supposed he had already known it would be coming. He knew she was trying to help, in her way, even if the constant little tests grated on his nerves. He wasn’t entirely sure that he would ever be able to make all the right choices- though, that in itself felt like a lesson too. Curt took a drink from the flask she had handed him. It was exhausting to keep up with. 

When he felt the poison hit and his throat close up, Curt remembered again why he had always dreaded meetings. 

By the time he left Cynthia’s office, no doubt sporting a new bruise, he was ready to just get going. As much as he loved the toys that the tech department made for the agents, actually having to spend time in there was uncomfortable at best. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t care about what they did at all, it was more that Curt couldn’t understand how anyone could be wrapped up in espionage and have access to rocket shoes and lasers and not want to go out and use them. Everyone here was just happy to sit around behind a screen or to tinker away at a workbench without ever going out in the field. It didn’t make sense. 

And then actually dealing with Barb’s... crush didn’t even seem like the right word anymore. He wasn’t sure how he could manage to be more obvious that he wasn’t interested. He had ended up actively making himself a menace and it still hadn’t seemed to help. 

The long flight to Monte Carlo ended up being a relief, just to have the time alone to compose himself. He would have to find the Russian woman later that night, and there wouldn’t be much time after he landed. He wouldn’t get another chance to center himself, and there already wasn’t enough time to make a real plan. 

Planning wouldn’t help, and he knew it. If he started thinking too hard about what he had to do, Curt knew he would slip up. Better to just trust his instincts and get it over with. She already knew who he was and what he wanted, there really wasn’t a point to trying to lie to her, at least. It was just a matter of discretion in the casino itself, assuming she didn’t try to run. 

Curt didn’t expect her to. If anything, she was more likely to poison him or pull something when they left the floor. She didn’t seem the type to try and make a scene. All he had to do was stay focused and get into her room. 

It should have been easy. 

He should have known something was bound to go wrong.

Seeing Owen on the casino floor had been just as disorienting as he had known it would be. In a moment, a thousand missions just like this one flashed before his eyes, of the two of them racing to see who could get to the mark first, competing for attention and playing off of each other through the night. It had never really mattered, which one of them ended up winning. Curt had stopped keeping track of that sort of thing early on. Owen would have known. It was exactly the kind of thing he would have teased Curt about later on, when whichever one of them had ended up with the mark came back to their rooms. 

Curt took a breath and pulled his eyes away from the vision of Owen across the room. He had to find the other agent who could give him his gun, and he had to find this woman. He couldn’t let himself get distracted by a man who wasn’t even really here. He had already had to knock out one of the wait staff because he had been off his game. He had to stay calm. He had been doing this for years. He knew exactly how to be suave and charming enough so no one would think twice when he led the woman back to her room. 

It was impossible to tell if it was bad luck, the influence of the incredibly grating American who had joined them, or just that Curt couldn’t focus when he kept seeing glimpses of Owen across the room at other tables. He was off. The things that had always worked without fail for him before just... didn’t get the same reception. The charm just wasn’t sticking, and Curt could feel the mask and the confidence slipping away. 

It was typical that the night would end with him being played. One more thing he really should have seen coming. Tatiana’s story was just something he had wanted to be true. After all of the missteps and disasters of the night, her being willing to just... hand over the bomb and be on her way was too tempting an offer. If she had really been working alone and needed help, she could have taken the bomb to any government in the world. 

He had been on edge from seeing Owen, from the reminder that there was no one to back him up. She reminded him that he was in this alone, and Curt realized suddenly that he wasn’t _ready_ to be alone. It had been a taunt, just like everything else seemed to be.

Of course she was working with someone else. 

He just hadn’t expected it to be the so-called Deadliest Man Alive. 

That both of them had managed to get themselves under Von Nazi’s thumb was an even greater surprise. The man was crazy, and while he was a threat that would need to be dealt with, Curt had trouble believing there wasn’t something else going on. An ex-KGB operative and the deadliest man alive were an awful lot of human firepower to try and keep under your thumb. 

It at least the two of them working together explained why the man had been so willing to leave the bomb behind at the arms deal. 

Von Nazi’s plan was typical. Kidnap a foreign leader, threaten to destroy the capital, and take power before anyone realized what happened. He would have to warn everyone, and make sure that Cynthia knew she had been bugged, but it all was starting to feel like the sort of thing he had dealt with all the time. 

Curt didn’t know what it said about him that he felt more like his old self captured and being threatened than he did trying to charm a mark or steal the target. He didn’t want to think about it. 

The surveillance system was concerning, but he vaguely remembered Barb had talked about something similar, so Curt expected it was just the sort of boring tech thing he would be dealing with now. Bugs had always been inelegant and obvious before, and he and Owen had never been really worried about them. They had been too easy to find. As long as Barb knew about it, she and the rest of the tech team should be able to deal with it. 

Curt just needed to get out of this damn chair. 

It had been a long time since Curt had been interrogated. It had been even longer since he had just been tortured just for the hell of it. Curt watched the man drop the bag, and heard the heavy metal thunk as it hit the ground. He didn’t think he could ever forget exactly how bad it could be. 

He was almost glad he wasn’t being grilled for information. Curt knew he had a high tolerance for pain, but his limits hadn’t been tested in years. He couldn’t know what this man knew about him, and Curt was already at a disadvantage. Curt hadn’t even been an active agent while the deadliest man had been doing most of his work, and Curt still couldn’t figure out how or why he seemed to have such a grudge. The man spoke like he had been following Curt for a long time. It didn’t bode well for what Curt knew was coming.

Torture always ended up being worse when it was personal. 

The man knew what he was doing, clearly enough. He spent a good while sorting through the bag, moving the chair around the room, just... talking. Telling Curt how long he had been waiting for this, how many people he had had in this same position before, how pleased he was that it was finally Curt's turn in the chair. Every now and again he would check on the restraints, tighten them, and go back to preparing the room. By the time he picked up the pliers, Curt could already feel the pit of fear in his stomach and knew that it must be starting to show on his face. 

Curt tried to bite down on the man's fingers when he grabbed his jaw, but he was strong and quicker than Curt expected, and Curt gagged on the metal taste of the pliers as they were jammed roughly into his mouth. He heard a laugh as the man forced his jaw open wider, and Curt whined at the strain. As painful as it was, it didn’t compare to having his tooth ripped out a moment later.

Curt watched the man from the corner of his watering eyes as he tossed Curt’s tooth away and went back to the bag. Losing a tooth wasn’t the worst thing Curt could imagine happening to him, even if the screaming pain in his jaw disagreed. He felt sick already, and the feeling wasn’t being helped by the copper taste of the blood dripping from his mouth and staining his suit. 

He didn’t have time to prepare himself for the battery. 

Curt’s mind went blank when the shock hit him. He could feel himself seize up, and distantly he thought the copper taste in his mouth had gotten stronger. There was a moment where he gasped in a desperate breath before it hit him again, and then again a third time. It felt like fire had been poured down his back, lashing across his chest and down his spine. There was an instant where he swore his heart stopped beating. 

Curt heard more than saw the electrodes hit the floor, coughing up the blood from the tooth and his now bitten tongue as he took in shaky breaths. His arms felt numb, and trying to roll his shoulders only sent a burst of pain through his body. 

“Bastard.” Curt choked out. “Why don’t you just kill me already?”

“Oh, I will. But I’m happy enough to take my time. Not in a rush, are you Mega?”

Curt looked up just in time for the man to land a punch right across his jaw- right where he had pulled the tooth. Curt blacked out for a moment. 

“We still have a whole night ahead of us.”

Curt tried to turn his head away from the cold bite of the chain when it first settled across his neck. He heard the man chuckle quietly behind him, letting it rest with just enough tension to stop Curt from taking a full breath. When it finally tightened, Curt couldn’t stop himself from thrashing out. He tried once to pull away, but only seemed to irritate the man into pulling the chain more tightly against his throat and leaning against the chair to make sure Curt couldn’t lean back and try to loosen the hold. 

It seemed like an eternity before the man tired of the chain. Curt rocked forward, sputtering and trying not to cough. He could feel the chain-link bruises already forming across his neck, and even wheezing in a breath seemed to ache. 

He hadn’t recovered by the time the man returned and yanked his head back against the back of the chair, and there was no mistaking the edge of a blade pressed against his throat. 

“Now I wouldn’t move, or this will be over much sooner than I thin-”

Curt heard a shout and the crack of someone being hit on the head and winced as the blade at his throat nicked him as the man holding it fell to the ground. He turned to see Tatiana breathing heavily and holding a gun. She grabbed the knife from the floor and started cutting at the ties around his hands. 

“Wh-what are you doing here?” Curt coughed. 

“What does it look like, I’m saving you. Come on, he won’t stay down forever.” 

Tatiana held the gun on the man as Curt moved shakily to his feet. He raised his hands to his face, unsure if he wanted to rub at the pain lingering in his jaw or at the soreness in his throat, and stumbled forward. 

“I don’t-” Curt turned and spit out the blood that had been pooling in his mouth again. He felt lightheaded. 

Tatiana grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. 

“We don’t have time for this! 

Curt heard a groan coming from the floor behind him, and he started to turn to look. Tatiana growled under her breath that Curt was only mostly sure was a curse. 

“Come on Curt!, Le-”

“-t’s get going, love.”

A second voice layered over Tatiana's. Curt would know it anywhere, no matter how hurt he was. His eyes shot to the door. Owen was leaning against it, eyes darting between Curt and the man on the floor. 

“Owen?”

Owen gave a sharp nod, pushing off the door frame and nodding his head toward the exit. Tatiana glanced back at the doorway, confused, before pulling at Curt’s arm again. 

“Mega! We need to go, now!”

Curt was frozen, drinking in the sight of Owen. Owen had always come for him before, had always been there to save Curt if he had gotten himself in too deep. Apparently, death wasn't enough to stop Owen from coming after him. Dazed and a little delirious, Curt couldn't help but laugh. So much for being alone.

"Mega! What are you doing, we need to-"

Her voice was drowned out by the gunshot and a scream. 

It took Curt a moment to realize that it was his scream, and oh, of course, they had taken his vest before they tied him up, so if he had been shot then that was... that was a lot of blood. Hadn't he already lost a lot of blood? That couldn't be good.

Curt looked up at Owen, but he was already gone. Distantly, Curt thought that was only fair.

Curt had been the one to get Owen killed, after all. It made sense that seeing Owen was the thing that killed Curt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what you all wanted, right? This is certainly what I wanted.
> 
> Also, if the show gets to throw in some painful lines that only make sense on a rewatch after the reveal, then SO DO I!


	5. The Calm Before the Storm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, this is longer and more emotional than expected. So emotional, in fact, that I'm now tagging this fic for "Emotional Conversations". You've been warned. There is no catharsis allowed in this house.

Curt wasn’t exactly sure how they managed to get away. He knew Tatiana had dragged him from the room, and he remembered being in agony as she rushed him through the hotel. He didn’t know how she managed to get them both out of the casino without being seen. He’s not actually sure they _weren’t_ seen, but considering they weren’t stopped and he wasn’t in a hospital, he supposed they managed to fly under the radar. 

He knew that the night air had been uncomfortably cold, and that he had shuddered in a breath at the shock of it, and that Tatiana had swore when she looked back and realized he had been leaving a small trail of blood that was all too noticeable. 

He knew that at some point, Tatiana had shoved him into an alley and told him to stay put and to stay quiet and that she had disappeared, and that he had had a moment to feel betrayed before he had blacked out again. 

As far as he could tell, Barb must have gotten to him shortly after and managed to get him to another hotel nearby. He didn’t recognize it, but he trusted that it was far enough away that they had some time if they were being followed. Curt knew better than to think they were safe. That was a surefire way to get caught out and to get both of them killed. They needed to get out of Monte Carlo, and Curt wasn’t in any shape to get out quietly or alone right now. 

There wasn’t time to go to a hospital, not that it would have been an option anyway. There would be too many questions he wouldn’t answer, and Curt knew that if he walked into a hospital as beaten as he was, he wouldn’t be getting back out any time soon without more effort than he thought he could expend. He needed to get to Geneva; he had to warn Cynthia about the plot against the prince. 

There was still time, and he could stop to rest on the train there. 

Curt knew he had gotten very, _very_ , lucky. Barb had given him something for the pain that he knew better than to ask about, and they had managed to bandage him up well enough to stop the bleeding. He would have to spend some time in medical eventually, but he had a day or two if he could manage to avoid an infection.

He had survived worse than a gunshot before.

It wouldn’t be pretty, and he was sure to have a very nasty scar when this was over, but he would make it. 

Curt regretted the confidence a few times on the actual trip to Geneva. He hadn’t managed to clean up as much as he would’ve liked, and he had thrown up several times from the shock and the reminder that he had been recently covered in his own blood. All he managed to do was aggravate the bullet wound and start the cycle all over again.

  
  


He barely managed to make himself presentable by the time he reached the gala, though it didn’t seem to matter much. Cynthia was a brick wall, and the other diplomats were no better. Curt felt the desperation growing. There wasn’t time to try and convince them, and Cynthia wouldn’t authorize him to continue this mission himself even if he managed to talk her into doing something. 

Curt glanced around desperately. He couldn’t go to the prince directly- even if he got close and wasn’t swarmed by guards, he was too hurt to offer any real help. He had barely managed to get himself here. He was out of options, and if he wasn’t authorized to do this officially and Cynthia wasn’t going to help, then he was on his own. 

He thought he could make a difference.

He thought he had time, that he had actually done it.

He thought, for a moment, that he had won.

He should have taken the time to sweep the gala.

He should have known not to push Von Nazi into something desperate.

He should have seen the scope.

He should have kept his mouth shut.

It was too much.

He never should have come back.

He had made everything worse.

He had failed, spectacularly. 

He couldn’t bring himself to be glad when Tatiana appeared and dragged him from the gala, even though he knew the next shot would be for him if he stuck around. Whether it would have come from the deadliest man alive or from Cynthia was still up for debate. He couldn’t quite convince himself he wouldn’t deserve it.

Curt didn’t know where Tatiana was bringing him, but he let himself be led along. He was spiraling, and Curt found that he didn't care. He would be lucky if they got out of this alive, doubly so if he still had a job at the end of it. He heard Tatiana asking if he knew somewhere safe they could go, and let that thought spin through his head for a moment instead. 

The safe houses nearby would all be monitored by one agency or another, especially considering the number of dignitaries and important persons in the city for the gala. Considering Tatiana was in hiding from the Russian government and Curt was a rogue agent, it wasn’t safe to stay here. His own home was out as well- too obvious, too personal. He didn’t want to know what insights another spy might gain from being in his space too long. 

It really only left his mother’s house. Guatemala was a long flight, and a trip he wasn’t looking forward to, but it was the safest place he could think of on no notice that they could both stay without being caught out. 

It didn’t make him feel any better to have his mother hovering over them, especially after she realized how badly he was hurt. The opiates he had gotten from Barb were just about worn out, and he couldn’t mask the pain in his side anymore. It didn’t seem to be infected yet, but Curt knew that it wasn’t a sure thing until he properly got checked out in medical. 

It would just have to wait a little while longer. 

Tatiana hadn’t been what he was expecting. He had guessed she would be trustworthy enough- at least in working against Von Nazi’s plan- but it was nice to actually know where her loyalties were. Revenge was as strong a motivation as any, and if she was as desperate to free herself and her family from the threats of blackmail as she seemed, Curt was confident enough that she would stick with him, at least for now. 

That she apparently cared enough to ask him if he was okay was something else. Curt wasn’t sure what to say.

He was afraid. He kept failing. He had botched every mission he had gone on since he had returned, and yesterday he had gotten a man killed. It wasn’t a game, but he kept losing when he couldn’t afford to. 

He needed to be better than the Curt Mega from before, and he couldn’t even come close to measuring up to his old self. 

He didn’t have anyone anymore. He had to be good enough to make up for that.

Tatiana scoffed at him. 

“Everyone needs help, especially in a job like this. Thinking like that is only going to get you killed, provided it doesn’t get everyone who cares about you killed first.”

Curt stilled, looking down at his hands. 

“It already has.” 

The words seemed to rip themselves from him. It hurt just as much as he knew it would. 

”Four years ago, I watched as my... partner, Owen...” he took a breath, steadying himself.. “He was killed right in front of me. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t do anything.”

Tatiana visibly softened.

“Curt... he was a spy. He knew the risks. Maybe things could have happened differently but... maybe not. You’ll never know. You just have to learn to move on.”

“I’m... not sure I can. I...” Curt trailed off.

“You’ve already started. You were willing to open up to me, to talk. It will hurt, but who knows.” Tatiana rested her hand on his. ”Maybe one day, you’ll find that the hurt is not so bad anymore.”

Curt drew back. He wanted to tell her how impossible that seemed. To confess that it hadn’t just been a mission gone wrong, it hadn’t been some lucky shot Curt hadn’t been able to stop an enemy from taking. He thought about telling her about the hallucinations, about the guilt, about the nightmares, about how even before he hadn’t been _enough_. 

The words didn’t come. 

Tatiana watched him and set her hand back in her lap. 

“Would you tell me about him? Owen?”

“He was... we were unstoppable together. We didn’t get the chance to see each other often, but that we worked together at all is proof enough that we could have taken on the world. We did. He made me a better spy. A better person. I don’t think I can be who I was without him. I don’t think I can come close.” 

Tatiana was quiet for a moment.

“You loved him.”

Curt paused, looking at her. There was no judgement, just a simple statement of fact. He shut his eyes. 

“I never stopped. I don’t know if I ever could.”

He felt Tatiana shift beside him.

“You are not lesser for having loved him. For loving him now. You are the same man you always were, the same one he made you.” Curt looked at her, surprised at the sincerity in her eyes. 

“I.... thank you.”

“It is not a weakness, to be afraid for the ones you love. Or to grieve their loss. I miss my family every day. I fight so that one day, I might be able to see them again. I fight for the memories I still have of them. It is all I can do.”

Curt saw her discreetly wipe a tear from her eye. 

“I do not know what is in store for me. This work is dangerous, and mistakes and accidents happen. It has to be enough to carry the people I love in my heart, for as long as I can.”

She reached out again, settling her hand on his. 

“You can’t change what happened, but you can move on. Cherish the memories you have, the time you spent together. Be the spy he would want you to be.”

Curt let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. 

The world felt still in a way it hadn’t in years. 

“I think I... I think I needed to hear that. I never thought... I didn’t think it would be him, and not me. He was always more careful. I know... I know that he worried, sometimes, about me. That I would...”

Curt swallowed the lump in his throat, and felt his eyes start to water. 

“He worried I would do something reckless and really get myself hurt. Or killed. God knows it almost happened often enough. I never... I never thought it would be him. It shouldn’t have been him.”

“Feeling guilty won’t bring him back, Curt. It will only keep you trapped.” She squeezed his hand. “He wouldn’t want this for you. You have to let it go.”

Curt took a deep breath.

She didn’t know. 

It was the only thought in Curt’s head. 

It was easy to say he had to let go of the guilt, of the shame, of the hatred he had for himself, when she didn’t know. Curt opened his mouth, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Let her think he was a good man. Let her think he deserved his life, when the entire accident had been his fault. 

He might’ve been the same man he always was, but he wasn’t so sure anymore that he wanted to be.

“Thank you.” he choked out. 

Tatiana smiled at him and squeezed his hand again. 

Curt wished he wasn’t such a good liar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been left to my own devices for too long, and now what was planned as one chapter is three of them, and they're all emotional roller coasters. Buckle up.
> 
> You get Ch 5 now, Ch 6 is likely coming within a day, and Ch 7 is well on its way to finished. It's going to be quite a week.


	6. The Stage is Set

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was easily the most frustrating chapter I've done yet, if only because I needed it to be exactly right. 
> 
> Nearly 3000 words later, and I'm pretty damn pleased with it.

Curt didn’t sleep well that night. 

He knew that the chance to rest and to heal was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He didn’t want to run from this. Tatiana might not have realized how deep the guilt ran, but she had cut to the heart of things. He had come back because he knew Owen would have wanted more for him. He wanted to be a spy again, and this job wasn’t over yet. 

Travelling to Guadeloupe might have been the only decent option he had thought of in the panic and adrenaline of the moment, but it had lost them a lot of time. Even considering the time it would take for Von Nazi to travel from Geneva to Prussian-Sloviskia, they were over a day behind, and there was no telling how far Von Nazi had managed to get in his plans already. Curt knew he had needed the break to try and fix himself up a bit more, but he couldn’t help but worry at the price he would pay for taking it. 

He had called Barb before their flight back to see if she could get anything together for them, but Curt wasn’t holding out a lot of hope. There wouldn’t be a lot of time, and there wasn’t much she would be able to sneak out without Cynthia realizing what was going on. They didn’t need the extra pressure of the agency chasing them down for this as well. 

That Barb had managed to talk the informant into working with them as well was a nice surprise. Curt hadn’t been expecting the extra set of hands, and even if the man wasn’t trained like Tatiana or himself, he couldn’t turn down the extra help. Curt was feeling about as well as he could have hoped, but he knew he was pushing the limits on keeping himself out of the hospital. He couldn’t put it off after this- there wouldn’t be any second chances. 

They would only have one shot. They needed to make it count. 

It hadn’t been far into the night when the bottles first appeared. Curt had been going over the plan with Tatiana, and they had been trying to figure out their options and the most likely places for Von Nazi to have holed up. He wasn’t sure who had brought them out or who had put the drink in his hand, but it was all too easy to be swept up in a toast.

Curt told himself it was just the one, something to take the edge off the lingering pain, something to steady the nerves he had been ignoring ever since they had landed. He knew better than to drink too much. He remembered why he had stopped.

Knowing better didn’t help after the fourth shot. It certainly didn’t help after the eighth. 

By the end of the night, they had come up with a vague enough plan to feel satisfied and had run through more bottles than Curt had seen in a long while. He couldn't remember why he had been so worried. He was flushed and well beyond drunk, but he was in good company and he felt, for a moment, untouchable again.

He didn’t have time to regret it in the morning either. There was some small comfort in seeing that the others seemed just as hungover, but there wasn't a chance to poke fun at anything they had done the night before or at their relative tolerances. They needed to scout the capital and make sure their guess had been right. Tatiana knew the area where they had originally planned to keep the bomb in the city, and she assumed they would be staying nearby to make sure it wasn’t disturbed early. Even with the change in their plans, she hadn’t seen a reason why they would have changed hotels. 

The informant would go ahead of them and try to find Von Nazi and the deadliest man alive, or at least try and find some of the countries diplomats and try to get them to see reason. Once they knew where everyone was, Curt and Tatiana could make their way there as backup. 

It had been going perfectly, so of course everything fell apart. 

They hadn’t expected the deadliest man to kill Von Nazi himself. 

It didn’t make sense.

The man had put in time and effort, had killed for this, had spent who knew how long working under someone as delusional as Von Nazi, only to betray him just as their plans seemed to be coming together. 

This wasn’t how things were meant to go.

“All this for what, a sheet of paper? An awful lot of trouble for something so simple.” 

Curt heard himself speak without fully meaning to, his mind racing ahead of him.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to figure it out.” 

The man was laughing. 

“Of course, you’ve been at quite the disadvantage.”

Something was wrong.

“I’ve had you figured out from the start.”

Curt felt a headache coming on. 

“Personal history does have it’s benefits, Mega.”

Owen’s voice punched through him. Curt had to stop himself from turning around to scan the rest of the room. The voice hadn’t come from behind him. There wouldn’t be anything there. 

Curt didn’t understand what was happening. 

He was hallucinating. He had heard Owen. Nothing had changed. 

He had to be hallucinating. Why had nothing changed. 

He watched the man pull off the mask. Curt couldn’t help but take a step back. 

“Hello Curt. Long time since we’ve seen each other, well. Face to face, hmm?”

Owen tossed the mask aside. Curt felt sick.

“The deadliest man alive! Quite the character, don't you think?”

Curt couldn’t hear himself think through the buzzing in his head. 

“O-Owen? No... you...” 

“You know, if it hadn’t been for my spot on aim and interest in foreign policy, I might’ve been an actor. I always did manage to catch you out, even if you’d never admit it.” 

Curt glanced over at the others, and he could feel the spiral of panic growing. There were only two reasons they would look so shocked at seeing Owen, and Curt refused to accept either.

“It takes quite a lot of discipline to research and rehearse a role to perfection, so that when the lights go up and its showtime, you’re ready. Or of course, we could do things your way and simply wing it!” Owen smiled at him. “But we both know how that turns out, right?”

“You can’t... you’re not here. You died.”

“Ah well. Part of me did. I probably spent as much time hating you as you did!”

Curt flinched. 

“Eventually, I realized what that night had taught me. Perhaps putting the fate of the world in the hands of an arrogant, impulsive, _brute_ is simply not the best option.”

“So you decided the Nazi’s were your better choice?” Tatiana asked.

Curt could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. 

If she was talking to Owen, then she saw him too. There wasn’t a reason for her to see him too. 

“Oh no, my dear. I’ve been manipulating Von Nazi from the beginning. The man was an expendable puppet. Do you honestly believe any of his plans would have gotten anywhere without my help?”

Either none of this was real, and Curt had really lost it or...

“How do you think you found yourself under his thumb, my dear. Did you think such perfect blackmail just fell into his lap? Did you think it was a spot of bad luck?”

Or Owen wasn’t dead, and Curt had fucked up more than he ever could have imagined. 

“No, all of that was merely a prologue. Our plan is only just beginning.”

Curt stumbled back against the wall for support.

“You’re working with someone...?” she asked.

He didn’t want this to be real. He would rather be insane than to know that he had... 

“Ah, yes. After my... hmm... my _accident_ , I met someone.”

He had left Owen in that building to die.

“He invited me into the fold of a little group he’d been organizing. Inventors, entrepreneurs, politicians, mostly.”

Owen had been alive. The whole time, he had been _alive_. 

“I’ve gotten very close with it’s director and done quite a bit of networking.” 

Curt couldn’t help but stare. This Owen wasn’t... he was new. There were scars Curt didn’t recognize across Owen’s hands. He was guarded, and even as he moved around the room, Owen didn’t take his eyes fully off of them. 

“You see, the attendees of this little society are all pooling their collective wealth and influence to try and create a better world. We call ourselves Chimera.”

Curt realized he hadn’t been breathing.

“The.. the fire breathing creature from Greek mythology? Body of a lion, a snake for a tail, extra heads...?” The informant asked.

He could feel his head spinning. 

“Yes, well done! A bit of everything. Curt always had a habit of surrounding himself with colleagues that were smarter than he was.”

“I... why. Owen, why all this?” Curt choked out.

Owen sat at the table and poured himself a shot.

“I don't have the time to wait for your little bird brain to figure it out, Curt.”

Curt didn’t remember him liking vodka much, before.

“Little birdies...” Tatiana whispered. “Chimera is after the technology.”

Owen looked pleased at how quickly she had figured it out. 

“And again! Yes, an advanced Nazi surveillance system designed to collect and archive state secrets. Imagine what we could do with all that knowledge at our fingertips...”

Curt didn't recognize the manic glint in Owen's eyes.

“But... you’ve had access to the system this whole time. Why go through all the extra effort? Why wait until now?

Owen got back up, crossing the room again. He had never been able to stay still for long. 

“We may have had our hands in the _existing_ system, but we didn’t yet have this.”

Owen pulled a sheet of paper out from his pocket.

“The deed for the Nazi castle on the Prussian land.”

Owen looked over the paper with something between pride and relief. Curt couldn't tell anymore.

“It’s not what’s on the land, my boy, but what’s _under_ it. It just so happens that this region sits on top of the largest wealth of pure, unmined silicon the world has ever seen.”

There was a beat of silence, and Owen looked over at them disparagingly. 

“Don’t you get it? Those stores of silicon will allow us to mass produce Von Nazi’s technology and deploy his system on a global scale! I’d have all the world’s secrets. I'd be God."

Owen leaned on the table. He glanced away from them for a moment.

"What a role that would be, eh?”

Owen looked almost wistful. Curt felt his heart twist.

“No government would ever allow this.” Tatiana said.

Owen laughed. It didn't sound genuine. There was something broken in it.

“Well no, not at first. I’ve found that everybody likes to do the watching, but nobody likes to be watched."

Curt felt his hands shaking. He couldn't seem to stop himself.

"You’d be surprised what people are willing to give up when you can simply hand them any information they could ever want.”

“We’ll... we’ll stop you.” Curt whispered.

Tatiana leveled her gun at Owen’s head.

“You are outnumbered. There is nowhere to go. Tell us where it is.” 

Curt couldn’t quite stop the panicked sound that slipped from him. 

“What?”

Owen sounded genuinely puzzled.

“The surveillance systems. Where has Von Nazi been keeping them?”

Owen stared at them, incredulous, before laughing again.

“You think it would be that easy? It’s not some case file or a hard drive that you can carry around with you.”

Owen got up, pacing the room.

“The current system is as big as an entire compound. Endless rows of computing consoles, filling up an entire island in the Pacific. Even if you managed to find it, you’d never be able to take it down. You've already lost."

Curt wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or to cry. Owen had apparently taken Curt’s flair for the dramatic when he had died.

“Well, if we’re done here. I’m terribly late for dinner, I’m afraid.” 

Owen crossed over to the door, opening it halfway before seeming to remember something.

“Oh, and a bit of advice, dear. If you choose to work with the infamous Curt Mega, take caution. His partners don’t tend to last.”

Curt realized what was about to happen a moment too late. 

Hearing the shot felt like waking up from a nightmare. Curt watched in horror as the informant fell to the ground. Tatiana rushed over to him, trying to stop the bleeding.

Curt lost the rest of his hope that he had simply lost his mind. 

“Always end on a high note, they say.” Owen tucked his gun back into its holster. “The fate of the world is in your hands, Curt. Are you going to go after me, or are you going to go after the machine.”

Curt looked up, locking eyes with Owen.

“I think I know which one you’ll choose.”

Tatiana swore, and Owen let a small smile twist across his lips. 

“Ah, yes, Tatiana. Do try not to _slip up._ ”

Curt watched, frozen, as Owen slipped out of the room. 

Tatiana swore again and got up. Curt didn’t hear what she was saying. 

He went over to the table and collapsed into a chair, grabbing at the bottle that was still sitting there. Tatiana snatched it from his hand before he could down the rest of it, and Curt laughed. 

Another mistake, then. 

“Curt, we don’t have time for this. We need to go, we need to stop him.”

She looked angry. Curt couldn’t tell if it was because of Owen or because of him.

“So that was all real then?” Curt whispered, exhausted.

Tatiana was quiet.

“It’s all just so... Owen was really here? He was... the deadliest man alive, that was Owen. _My_ Owen. He’s... he’s been alive. This whole time, he’s been alive?” 

Curt hung his head in his hands and shut his eyes.

“You... Tatiana, you _saw_ him, right?”

It took less than a moment for her realization to break the silence. 

Owen was right, he did surround himself with people who were smarter than he was. That was good. He was glad. He wasn't sure he could have actually said it out loud.

He glanced over at her when he heard her pull out the chair beside him, and she carefully put a hand on his shoulder.

“It was real, Curt. This is real, and you weren’t hallucinating. Owen was here and right now we’re the only people who can stop him. We need to destroy the compound, and we can’t let him get away.” 

Curt shook his head, and Tatiana stood back up.

“We’re the only people who know about Chimera, and right now they won’t be expecting us. Curt, I can’t imagine how hard it must be, seeing him again, but we need to go, now. We can’t lose this chance.”

Curt tried to center himself. 

“You... you’re right. We need... Destroying the compound. That’s what matters most right now, is making sure we can get the network offline before they find out we know about it.” 

Curt pulled his watch off his wrist, sliding it across the table. 

“You should... here. Take this. Call Barb. She’ll be able to help find it. An island filled with computers sounds like something right up her alley. You go after the compound. I’ll... I have to go after Owen.”

“Curt, you know that is what he expects you to do. If you’ve been... Curt, are you sure you can do this?”

“I have to. I can’t... I already...” Curt choked back a sob. “Tatiana, I didn’t tell you the whole truth, before. It wasn’t that he died, that isn't it, it's that it was my fault, and I-”

“Curt, you can’t blame yourself for-”

“I can! Tatiana, I can, _I have to_ , because it was my fault he fell! I was the one who set the charges too soon, I was careless.” Curt stood up, hands tangled in his hair. “This isn’t just guilt because I wasn’t a good enough _spy_ and I couldn’t save him from the job. If I hadn’t been there, Owen would have been fine.”

Curt felt the tears running down his face, and tried to slow his heaving breaths. 

“Tatiana I can’t... I can’t just let him go. I can’t know he’s alive and let him walk away.”

She was quiet, but after a moment she held out her arm. 

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. I’ve never been more certain. This is something I have to do.”

“Then Curt. Be safe.” 

“You too. And... don't... I never...No one else knows what...”

“We all have our secrets. No one deserves to be measured by their past forever.”

“Thank you. Tatiana, _thank you_. And... good luck.”

Tatiana looked back as she closed the door. “Good luck, Curt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're nearing the end of the road, now. Everything is coming together.
> 
> Edit 5/2: Chapter 7 is coming, but not today. It should be done next week by mid-week, but it's a hell of a chapter and I'm not going to rush it. It's looking like it'll be nearly twice as long as the other chapters and I'm not splitting it like I've been doing. I'll get it to all of you as soon as I can.
> 
> It's also looking like this will wrap up in 8 chapters, but there ARE very hesitant plans for a 'verse.


	7. No Happy Endings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I've been saying things will get better? Yeah, uh. Not in this one. Things are about to get far, far worse.

The soft click of the closing door shook through him. Curt stood and watched it for a moment. He let out a long, shuddering breath. 

Curt glanced desperately around the room, not sure what he was looking for, when his eyes fell on the bottle that Tatiana had left on the table. 

He hadn’t even realized what he was doing before he had picked it up and thrown it against the wall with a shout.

He felt himself shatter with it.

Four years.

Owen had been alive for four years, and he hadn’t known. He hadn’t done a thing. He had never made sure of it himself. They had told Curt that Owen was dead, and Curt had believed them.

Curt had believed them, and they had _lied_.

For four years, Curt had lived with the guilt of killing Owen, of knowing that it had been his fault. He had spent years imagining what could have been, what might’ve happened if they had both made it out, about the life they could have had if Curt had just listened.

He had never thought that Owen being alive could be a worse option.

Curt had left him. 

Curt had run and left Owen alive and broken in that building as it collapsed. He had left him alone to die, and he hadn’t ever gone back. He hadn’t looked, he had never checked.

He had been in shock, he had been mourning, but it hadn’t been an excuse. 

He had seen more miraculous things than a spy coming back from the dead.

He had been afraid of what he would find, he had wanted to be able to pretend rather than being forced to know for sure and now...

He couldn’t let Owen go again. 

Curt didn’t know what he was going to do, but he couldn’t just let Owen walk away. He had left Owen behind once. He had left and it had been the biggest mistake he ever made, and he had paid with four years of guilt. This... it felt like a second chance.

Owen was alive. 

Owen was the one behind all of this.

Owen hated him.

Owen tried to kill him.

Owen tortured him.

Curt’s hand drifted to his side. The phantom taste of copper seemed to fill his mouth. 

Owen had _tortured_ him. 

Not like it had been before, where everything had been for the sake of a cover. There were no pulled punches, no lingering touches to hide an apology. He had _meant_ it. 

Curt knew exactly what Owen was capable of, and he was suddenly unbearably grateful to Tatiana for getting him out. 

He had gotten off easy.

He didn’t want to think about whatever had been in store for him otherwise.

But... even if Owen wanted him dead. Even if Owen hated him... he was _alive_. 

It was everything Curt had wanted for years.

It didn’t matter what Owen had done. It didn’t matter what was waiting for them at the end of this road. 

Owen was here. He was _real_ again. 

Curt would rather have Owen alive and hating him than dead and out of his reach. 

Curt wouldn’t leave this time. He owed Owen that much, at least.

Nothing else mattered. 

He had to do this.

If Owen was still the man Curt thought he was, Curt would be able to find him. 

Owen wouldn’t be able to resist leaving a trail, not when he knew Curt would follow it.

He had always liked the chase. 

Curt took a small comfort in knowing that he would at least be able to reach whatever it was Owen was leading him towards, even if it was undoubtedly a trap. 

He took a step toward the door and had to catch himself on the table as a wave of nausea tried to knock him to the floor. 

And presuming he could actually get wherever they were going before his injuries caught up to him.

Finding out where Owen had gone was as easy as Curt had expected. Peeling through the capital on a motorcycle during the public mourning of the prince was about as subtle as a gunshot. 

Commandeering his own bike had been fairly easy as well, but the long hours hunting Owen down across what felt like all of eastern Europe were anything but. Curt had caught up enough to tail him fairly early, but Owen hadn’t lost any of his skill, and there were only so many options Curt had that wouldn’t put them or any of the civilians around them at risk. 

By the time Owen left the motorways and headed back into the city, Curt was just relieved he hadn’t crashed. He could barely keep himself steady enough to ride under decent conditions, never mind with the added difficulty of weaving through traffic at well beyond the speed advisory in the dead of night.

If he had been sharper, Curt might have noticed what the building Owen had slipped into actually was. If he had been more focused past the pounding in his temples, he might have realized sooner that the soft footsteps he had been following had come to a halt, and that the stillness of the air was cut only by his own breathing. 

As it was, Curt was entirely unprepared for the staff that cracked across his shoulders as he stepped slowly into the room ahead.

He stumbled forward, trying and failing to regain his balance. 

“After all this time, nothing’s changed, has it Curt. Still a second rate spy.”

Owen had been waiting for him. Of course.

Curt scrambled back, trying to get back to his feet and get a measure of distance. He looked around the room- some sort of museum? 

“You never did measure up. Always a step behind, always needing a helping hand. No small wonder Cynthia always liked me better.”

Owen turned and pulled something off the wall before tossing it in Curt’s direction. He tried to hide his wince as the staff clattered to the ground in front of him. Judging by Owen’s bark of laughter, he hadn’t succeeded.

“Typical.”

Curt scrambled to pick up the staff as Owen swung at him. The blow shook through his arms. 

“What are you doing here, Curt? Playing the hero again? Be realistic.” 

Curt ducked back behind a display, trying to map out as much of the room as he could. A museum, apparently filled with weapons. Level ground, at least, even if the displays would block a few sight lines. He had been caught unaware in worse places. 

“You can’t even save yourself.”

Curt barely managed to bring the stave up to avoid the next hit. Owen was aiming for his side. If it had connected, Curt knew he wouldn’t have been on his feet for much longer, if he had managed to stay conscious at all. It was a low blow, and Curt was suddenly struck by how little he still knew about the man in front of him.

“What... Owen, what _happened_ to you?”

A dark look passed over Owen’s face. The crack of the staves echoed through the room as Owen forced him to take a step back. 

“It’s a little late for questions, don't you think? As if you didn’t know what _happened_ to me. You _killed_ me.”

Owen’s next swing was wild, and Curt heard glass shatter as he jumped back. 

“Losing you broke my heart, Owen, I-”

Curt nearly tripped over himself when Owen came back at him with a _sword_ at him, of all things. 

“Don’t say that like it means something.”

Curt deflected the next blow into another display as Owen swung at him again. Curt took a step back, moving between the displays as he heard Owen swear softly as he struggled to pry the sword back out of the case. 

“We don’t have to do this, Owen!” Curt called out, hope slowly fading from him.

“You have _no idea_ how long I’ve been waiting for this. You don’t know how much I’ve done to bring us here, Curt.”

Curt heard the soft crunch of glass as Owen pulled out whatever had been in the case. 

“You’ve been behind it from the start... Von Nazi, the technology... how much of this has been Chimera’s work?”

There was a soft click and a bang, and the panel beside him exploded into splinters. 

“You really are clueless.”

Curt scrambled around behind the displays and saw Owen fumbling with what looked like a flintlock. He had time to reposition then. There was another click, but what followed was a soft curse, rather than another shot. 

He heard Owen toss the gun back into the case as he backed into a more defensible position.

“This isn’t how this ends, Curt. You and your friends won’t be able to stop us.”

Owen’s voice seemed to bounce around the room, and Curt glanced around nervously. He couldn’t tell where Owen had gone.

“I can’t let you get away with this, Owen! You’re hurting innocent people!”

Curt heard a laugh echo off to his side and spun to face it. 

“There are no innocents anymore.”

Curt still couldn’t see Owen, and a chill ran down his spine. 

“You’ve lost your mind.”

A shadow crossed over the edge of a display ahead of him. He couldn’t tell if it was real or if he was seeing things in the dark.

“You can’t see it Curt. You never could.” 

The voice was coming from the wrong direction. 

Light flooded the room, and Curt threw his arm up and blinked against the sudden brightness. He heard Owen running across the room, and heard an alarm go off shortly after. Curt looked around at the field of broken glass and ruined displays and sighed before dropping the staff and running after him. 

Chasing Owen down was somehow more exhausting than fighting with him.

It took Curt longer than it should have to realize where Owen was leading them. Their route through the eastern nations had been winding, but there was very little in the region of the Soviet Union they seemed to be heading for other than bad memories. 

The building wasn’t the same. It couldn’t have been- there would be no point in rebuilding a compromised location, and anything of value would have simply been salvaged and taken elsewhere. Curt knew there would have been dozens of other secret facilities working on nuclear weapons research. It shouldn’t have been so shocking to see those hallways again. 

It wasn’t the same, but it might as well have been.

Curt knew Owen was inside, waiting for him. It was poetic and dramatic and exactly the sort of grand gesture that Owen would want to make, after all the trouble it must have been to get them both here. 

Going inside was like stepping back in time.

Curt swore he could hear the rumble of cracking foundations, the scream of an alarm going off several floors below him. The walls were too cold, and none of them sat on the right angles or went on for the right distance. 

He heard footsteps somewhere ahead of him, and turned toward the sound, slowly making his way through the building. Everything was too similar. Too close to his memory, but not close enough to match. He felt lost, swallowed by hallways that he knew wouldn’t lead him where he wanted to go. 

“This is the end, Curt.”

There was an echo to the voice that trailed gently down the hallway. It was close. An open room. Another trap. 

“I don’t want to do this, Owen!” Curt called out, carefully stepping into the larger room ahead of him. It looked like it could have been a warehouse floor at one point, but now crates and machinery lay abandoned below him. 

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you!”

There was a sharp groan of metal and Curt had to jump aside to avoid a section of the walkway that fell away beneath him. 

“It’s always been about you, hasn’t it. Your feelings, what you want, what you’ve been through. I’m done.”

“Owen, I-”

“It’s over! It’s _over_ , Curt. You never _listen_. You’re the same man you always were. I wish I could say I was surprised. I don’t have anything left to try and say to you.”

Curt leaned back against the wall, trying to pinpoint where Owen’s voice was coming from. They had to end this. He could feel the exhaustion in his bones, weighing him down and clouding his head. He turned at the sound of footsteps that were closer than they should have been, but couldn’t duck quite fast enough to avoid the punch Owen threw at him. 

He staggered back, the railing just barely stopping him from falling down the stairs. Curt turned and looked back up at Owen. He was blank. Curt had never been on the other side of that look before. He knew what was next. 

They drew their guns on each other with a synchronicity that seemed rehearsed. 

“It’s time to take your final bow, Curt.”

“Your island facility is being destroyed as we speak. The network is fried. Whatever happens here, it’s already over.”

Owen was quiet for a moment, considering, before he let the gun fall away from Curt. 

“And what of the others? Do you really believe there wouldn’t be backups? An auxiliary?”

“There... there’s more?” Curt leaned against the wall. The world seemed to spin around him. He couldn’t seem to keep his aim steady, and let the gun fall to his side.

“How does it feel to know you’ll _never_ catch up with us.” 

“It... we can still fix this. I...if you agree to give up Chimera I’m sure the agency can pull some strings and-”

“No, no you still don’t _see it_ , do you Curt! There won’t _be_ any agencies to go back to once the system goes global. I’m going to single-handedly dismantle _everything_ you’ve ever believed in.”

“We used to share those beliefs. Think of the missions we served. The lives we saved. Think of the impact we had on this world, together. Two of the greatest spies to ever live. And you consider that, and you look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t believe we’re still making a difference. This _matters_ , Owen. Where would they be without us?”

“The future is happening, Curt, and it’s not going to stop and _wait_ for you. What use will we be when a box in a room halfway across the world can do our job in seconds?” 

“Sounds boring.”

“It’s over. For us... for everything.”

“I’ll stop you.”

“You’ll do your best. This life... you could never be anything else. I remember, Curt. I remember every mission, every moment. But that’s all over now. A new world awaits us. A world without agencies, a world without spies, a world without _secrets_.”

“Some secrets aren’t yours to share. What about our secret? The time we shared? The feelings we had? Are you ready to share that with the world?”

“That secret died the night you left me for dead.”

“Clearly.”

“Here’s some advice Curt. It’s called moving on. Do give it a try.”

Curt could feel the gun trained on him, and whatever survival instinct he had left sent him into autopilot. Before he could think if it was the right choice, he had already turned and shot the gun from Owen’s hand. 

Curt found himself holding Owen at gunpoint. It was familiar. He felt sick.

“You know, killing me won’t take the system offline so... what are you doing?”

He didn’t know. The gun shook. 

A bloodstain started to seep through the fabric over Owen’s chest, exactly where he had shot the vision years before. Owen looked afraid, under it all. Curt supposed his plan wasn’t meant to go quite like this.

Curt blinked, and the blood vanished. 

“I... no. No, not again.” Curt whispered, letting his aim fall. Owen looked incredulous.

“After all this, after everything, you still can’t listen to me, can you Curt?”

“I already lost you once. I already killed you. Owen, you can’t... I can’t do it again.”

“So what then? You ever so graciously let me walk away? We both know that’s not how this goes.”

“I... I can’t just let you leave. Chimera-”

“What choice do you have? Do you plan on taking me back to your precious agency? You know as well as I do that all they’d see is a traitor. You take me back, and it’s as good as just pulling the trigger right here.”

“I don't...”

“You never _think_ , Curt! What else is there for us, huh? Our world, our lives... it’s _over_! Perhaps not today, perhaps not even in a year, but the end is coming. It’s already begun. We’ve always been expendable to them. An affordable loss. The world doesn’t stop turning for the loss of a spy.”

“My world did.”

Owen’s laugh sounded almost like a sob.

“Always a romantic. The world doesn’t work like some sort of fairy tale story, Curt. There isn’t a happy ending for us.”

“There could be. Owen, I know-”

“You don't know _anything_! You don’t know what I went through, the things I _lost_ when you left me. You don’t know how much I _hated_ you-”

“I know you missed the shot, Owen.” Curt said quietly.

It hung in the air. 

Owen's voice was clipped. 

“I don’t miss.”

“You had me dead to rights. An easy target. I’ve seen you hit harder marks from ten times as far in worse situations. You and your _spot-on aim_. So go ahead, tell me again that you really meant to kill me in that hotel.”

Curt watched Owen's expression smooth out and become carefully blank.

“I was going to kill you, Curt.”

“And when did that change?” he scoffed.

“You don’t get to-”

“If you still wanted me dead, I wouldn’t be here, Owen! You had plenty of chances. Why didn’t you take them?”

“You don’t get to turn this on me when you were the one who walked away! _You_ left _me_!”

“I thought you were _dead_!

“I _waited_ for you Curt!”

Curt stilled.

“I waited, and when I woke up in the hospital and you weren’t there I... I _waited_ , for so long, Curt. And you never came. You can’t expect me to forgive you for that.”

“You can’t think I would have ever left you there if I had known. If there had been anything, _anything_ that made me think you were still alive...”

“You know they never found a body. That should have been enough for you to ask. To do _something_.

“Do you even realize what losing you did to me? Not a single day goes by where I don’t think of you. Owen, you meant... you _mean_ -”

“Give it up, Curt. This won’t... nothing can change.”

Owen looked tired. He looked defeated. It didn’t suit him.

“We can fix this, we can-” Curt stammered.

“I have hated you for so, so long, did you know? I couldn’t even tell you when I finally figured it out. Maybe it was always like this. But one day I realized how... how absolutely furious I was that you weren’t _there_ , and it just...” Owen took a breath. “You know, it struck me that never once did you ever tell me you loved me? Before?”

Curt couldn't breathe.

“I... how... how could you not kno-”

“Don’t! Don’t you _dare_ try to tell me that. Even if you think you did once, this... Curt, this isn’t love.”

“You don’t get to decide what I feel, Owen.” 

Curt was surprised at the dark tone that crawled out of him. It sounded like a threat, and it was one he knew he couldn’t follow up on. He felt as if he were about to fall apart. Owen didn’t even look at him.

“It took me a long time to see it. You were always just so reckless. It... ha. It killed me to watch you constantly throw yourself into danger. You certainly hid it well, I’ll give you that. But I realized, eventually. You were so afraid. Afraid of us, afraid of everyone else, afraid of the future... tell me Curt, does your mother know she’s never getting to plan that wedding?”

Curt tried to find an answer, but there were no words. 

“That’s what I thought. I... do you want to know why, Curt? Why all of this? It’s because I... God help me, I really loved you. I wanted... every single time I saw you I was just so _relieved_ that you hadn’t managed to get yourself killed. They wouldn’t have told me, you know. Not any time soon. Not until MI6 needed an in with the Americans and it wasn’t you I was working with. And I was so worried that you would leave and go off and be reckless and bigger than life and that you wouldn’t come back. I wanted a life with you. I wanted a future. I thought it could have worked, I believed you and I thought-”

“Owen, I wa-”

“You didn’t!” Owen hissed, stepping down into Curt’s space. “You can’t. If you had loved me like I loved you, we wouldn’t be here. None of this would have happened. You would have been safe. You would have stayed. You would have come _back_. But no, no I’ve always been the one to do that, haven’t I?” 

Owen turned away, rubbing his face. 

“I am so tired, Curt, of having to worry about you. Of bleeding for you, of _hurting_ , all the time, because of you. I owe you years of that pain. I have hated you for so long. I don’t... I don’t know if I can ever _stop_ hating you for this.”

Curt felt his heart breaking. 

“And Chimera? Hating me, I... at least I understand, but...”

“No one is innocent, Curt. Not you, not me, not anyone with the agencies... just imagine. Imagine all the pain we could stop. The wars, the infighting. We just need the right voices at the right time. No more plots, no more secrets. It would take years, decades, maybe, before the system really worked but... it’s as noble a cause as we ever served. Perhaps more.”

“And what about all the people in your way. The people Chimera is more than happy to get rid of in the name of what, peace? What about them?”

“If you’re talking about my little cover, I think you’d find that kill count is a fair bit lower than you were told, and certainly not all of them were actually me. Not that you have a right to judge.”

“We can... we can fix this. You don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t you get it? There isn’t anything left. There’s only one way this can end, and it’s not with both of us alive. There are no happy endings, Curt. Not for people like us.”

“Owen... do you really believe that?” Curt’s voice was barely a whisper. 

“I do.”

“Then... there’s no point to this, is there?”

Curt brought the gun up to Owen’s head. He was close enough for the barrel to press against his temple. Owen’s eyes widened a fraction, and the expression that passed behind his eyes would have been imperceptible had Curt not been watching for it. It was heartbreak, and fear, and vindication. It was years of betrayal cementing into place. It was all Curt needed to see.

He turned his head aside, closed his eyes, and moved the gun from Owen’s head to his own.

“Tell me that this is what you want from me, Owen. I can’t do this again, so.” Curt clicked off the safety. “Say it.”

When it came, Owen’s voice was quiet and low. Dangerous. 

“What is this.”

“You want me dead? Say the word. Walk away, because this...” Curt looked back at Owen, tears forming in his eyes, gun shaking in his hand. ”This is what’s left for me, Owen. Whether it’s you or someone else or we leave here and I go home alone and I put another hole in my wall, it’s... you don’t...” Curt pressed the barrel to his temple again, trying to keep his hand steady. “You don’t have to forgive me, and God knows I don’t think I can ever forgive myself but I can’t...”

Curt shut his eyes. “I can’t lose you again.”

“ _Curt._ ” 

Owen’s voice was quiet, but unmistakably doubled. It folded over itself, whisper and warning tied together to the point where Curt wasn’t sure if it was real or imagined or both.

“If you want me dead so badly, if you hate me like you keep trying to convince yourself you do, you’d tell me to shoot, Owen. I won’t drag this out because I _miss_.”

“Go on. Pull the trigger, love.”

Curt felt his finger twitch. The voice hadn’t come from the right spot. It wasn’t really Owen. It couldn’t be. Curt took a step back, bumping into the railing.

“Owen, please.” Curt’s voice broke on his name.

“Put the gun down, Curt. Aim for the heart, right?”

The voices layered over each other, twisting into each other in a mockery of a duet. Curt couldn’t tell which one was real, which words were real. He couldn’t bear to open his eyes again and to try and figure it out. He wasn’t sure he knew what would be worse, anymore.

“You killed me Curt, you owe me this. You need to listen to me, for once in your life.”

It was so loud. “Please. Just...” He needed it to be quieter, just for a moment. He couldn’t...

“You need to listen to me.”

Curt swore he felt something creeping across his skin.

“I... _Owen_.”

“Curt. Curt, give me the gun. If you won’t do it then I’ll do it myself.”

Curt’s grip tightened, and he thought he heard an intake of breath as his fingers curled. 

“No, no it’s me. It has to be me. I... I’m-”

“Then pull the trigger, Curt!”

“I’m sorry.”

Owen crashed into him, slamming them both into the wall and forcing Curt’s arm upward as he pulled the trigger. There was an expression on his face that Curt couldn’t quite place, shifting somewhere between anger and horror and fear.

"What are you _doing_."

Curt could barely hear through the ringing in his ears. Owen pried the gun away from him and tossed it behind them. His touch felt like ice, but Curt couldn't gather the strength to pull away. 

“Curt, you’re burning up. What...”

Another odd look passed over his face, and Curt let himself be handled as Owen pushed him to sit and started pulling at his shirt. Curt didn’t understand. Owen hated him. Owen tried to kill him. Owen had brought him here to die, and now...

Owen was cursing, and there was a searing pain in his side that Curt was only now realizing he had been ignoring for hours.

“Did you not... Curt, did you not go to a _hospital_? Medical? Anything? You had days after Monte Carlo, how did-”

Owen’s voice seemed far away. 

Curt felt the darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision, and couldn’t seem to ward it off. 

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know what would be on the other side of the black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUT DID THEY DIE THOUGH. NO. YOU'RE WELCOME.


	8. A Thin Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely can't with this. I need to publish it, I can't keep agonizing over it. Unedited and unbetad more than it normally would be, but I need this out before I go to work. So...
> 
> Now for something entirely different.

Owen didn’t remember falling in love with Curt Mega. 

He hadn’t ever expected to. 

It was dangerous, having attachments, never mind to another spy. 

Never mind to another man.

And of all the people Owen had been assigned to work with, Curt Mega came with a reputation that Owen hadn’t expected to be able to tolerate for very long. He was loud and impulsive and the fact that Owen knew any of that at all was frankly a greater condemnation of his skill as a spy than anything else. He hadn’t understood how Curt was considered one of the best the Americans had to offer or why their agencies had ever dreamed that they could work together. 

Meeting Curt hadn’t actually done anything to change that opinion. He had been demanding and uncooperative and totally uninterested in actually going over their briefing or making a plan at all. He had been cavalier about it. He had instantly managed to get under Owen’s skin. It had almost been enough to convince Owen to walk off the assignment, to take whatever pointless work they would punish him with for backing down. Working with Curt would end poorly, he was sure of it, and he hadn’t wanted to put his life and reputation in danger for the sake of an American who couldn’t focus long enough to read a single dossier. 

It hadn’t been until they had been discovered- nothing Owen’s plan could have accounted for, not by any mistake, just bad luck- that Owen realized why and how Curt had the reputation that he did. 

Despite everything falling apart around them, Curt seemed entirely unfazed. Owen had expected something- some change, to see some hint of nervousness or fear or  _ something _ , but Curt was as relaxed as he had ever been. He was cool headed enough to make jokes, to parrot back parts of Owen’s plan that he had been  _ sure _ Curt hadn’t been listening to. And it hadn’t just been Curt’s apparent comfort with the nightmare they had been running through that had come as a surprise. 

Every shot Curt fired hit its mark. Enemies dropped ahead of them before Owen had even finished aiming. The ruthless and brutal efficiency of it all seemed disconnected with Curt’s laughing voice counting out shots beside him. They raced through the building, and Curt always seemed to already be exactly where Owen would have wanted him before he could turn to ask. It was like working with an extension of himself. 

It made working alone again on his next few assignments seem more impossible than usual. 

Owen didn’t know if it had been a disastrous mission well salvaged or just luck that had them working together again a few months later. And then again, and then impossibly again. It was rare for agents to be assigned together too frequently and coupled with the fact that neither of them worked for the same government, it felt like a miracle that they saw as much of each other as they did. They were focused together, a good match, Owen had been told. Their partnership was good for international relationships, and it made both agencies look good when they could extract information from another major political power, ally or not. It was insurance, they said, that at least one of them would be able to do as they had been told and bring back whatever they had been sent for. 

Against all odds, and despite the sour taste that always seemed to come with talking to the higher ups, Owen couldn’t really disagree. They did work well together. Owen would pour over the plans, talking over all of the choke points and dangers he could see ahead of them, agonizing over the finer points of their briefings while Curt absorbed his ideas and coaxed him back into reality. And whenever something went wrong, Curt was always there, cheerful and ridiculous and ready to shoot and explode their way out of wherever they had gotten themselves trapped this time. He was reliable, steady- a comforting light to guide the both of them back to safety. 

Owen likes to think that that’s why the pit of fear ran so deep that first time that he saw Curt get shot. Curt always seemed so bright, so alive, and seeing him injured somehow made him... diminish. It made Owen panic. He hadn’t realized how much he relied on Curt being himself to get them through a botched mission. He hadn’t realized how far his feelings had spiraled out of his control. Owen hadn’t ever been afraid when he was working with Curt, not since the very beginning. It must’ve shown.

Things were different, after that night. 

It was hesitant and colored with fear and paranoia, but Owen couldn’t deny the feelings between them. Their love was fast and young and fragile. It was moments stolen in hotel rooms they weren’t meant to be sharing. Glances caught from across rooms that should have been impossible to notice, but that stood out as if they were the only two people left alive. Whispers in the dark of a future neither of them truly believed they would have, but longed for all the same. 

Falling in love with Curt had been easy.

Falling out of it... well.

It had certainly been quite the fall.

Owen had been surprised to wake up.

He could tell it was an agency hospital, though everything was so predictably nondescript that he had no idea where in the world he actually was. His room didn’t seem to have any windows, at least, so it would be a safe enough bet to guess he was underground somewhere. He knew they would be keeping him as secure and his survival as secret as they could. 

He supposed it made sense.

One of the few things he remembered from the drugged haze when he first began to wake up was being told that he was, as far as the rest of the world was concerned, already dead. 

A ghost.

If he managed to survive and recover enough to get back in the field, he would be sent out for the more covert operations that MI6 didn’t want to be associated with on any official records. He didn’t have a choice in the matter. No one said as much but Owen could read between the lines. The only other option was simple. They had already gone through the trouble of printing his death certificate, after all. 

Those early weeks dragged on in a haze, but Owen remembered the hate. 

When he was clear headed enough to think through the steady drip of morphine, Owen felt it already settled comfortably in his chest, cold and bitter tasting. Owen hated the nurses and doctors who moved faceless and silent through his room, he hated the agency for wringing every ounce of use and humanity from him for as long as they could, he hated himself for lying broken and defeated and alive in a hospital room no one knew about.

Owen had always held his tongue when it was clear how little the handlers and the agency cared for their agents. It was a dangerous profession, and he and all of the other agents he had ever met all knew it, but Owen couldn’t help but think that MI6 and all the rest would rather have a body bag than a failure. Whenever he or Curt had been in medical, there had never been any sympathy, any support- only ever the cool impatience of children waiting for a broken toy to be fixed.

All of this was only more proof. 

Owen had half expected Curt to come bursting through the doors like some sort of fairy-tale prince coming to rescue him and spirit them off to far, far away. He had never failed to appear before, always just a little bit more disheveled than he thought he was, smiling brightly and often a little bit bloody and ready to blow their way out of whatever trouble they had slipped into. 

Owen knew it was absurd, that it was impossible, but the thought wouldn’t go away and when it never happened and Curt never came, Owen felt the dark and hateful thing coil ever more tightly around his heart, feeding on the hopelessness that bled from the stark and blinding white of the walls. 

He felt his thoughts twisting in on themselves in the uncountable hours, loneliness and longing woven in with the bitterness of being used and abandoned and all of the unending hate that burned in his gut. 

It sunk into him. 

Curt got to walk away. He got to move on and mourn and go on living his life and being so bright and Owen had been left behind, broken and hurt and forgotten in the ruins of his life. He had been left with all the pain and the worry and the weight of everything they had been through. Owen had lost his name, his life. He had been broken down to the smallest parts of himself and he knew that however he had been put together was wrong, all his pieces chipped and scrambled up and made into something lesser than whoever he had been before.

He couldn’t even do anything about it all. The hate and the anger was just left to sit and simmer and to fester inside him even as he slowly began to heal. It crept into the open wounds and made a home too deep to cut out again.

Owen tried to leave when he felt strong enough to stand on his own. It hadn’t gone well. If he was being honest with himself, it hadn’t gone anywhere. Owen hadn’t even made it across the room before a nurse had come through the door and ushered him back into the bed. He hadn’t bothered to fight against the look she had given him. He hadn’t been quite that foolish. 

The attempts in the following months didn’t fare much better, and all they seemed to earn him was increased trips to physical therapy and more people coming in to poke and prod at him. 

Looking back, Owen thinks that that isn’t quite true. He supposes his obvious attempts to break himself out were probably why he had been approached at all. 

The nurse who spoke to him had been sympathetic, and it had been such a departure from the stoic doctors and disappointed faces of handlers that Owen hadn’t known how to respond. He had been starved for company for so long that any sign of humanity was a welcome change.

She told him she was sorry he had gone through what he had, that it was a shame that he had woken up without any real options. She told him she thought it was terrible that they expected him to heal and move on as if nothing happened. That it was horrible for them to give up everything in his life without a goodbye, to have such complete blind faith in the agency.

It was slow, and certainly carefully done, but Owen knew a test when he saw it. It tooks months of delicate back and forth before Owen realized exactly what was being offered, and slightly longer to accept that it was genuine. Whoever she was working for, it certainly wasn’t MI6. He wasn’t actually sure it was a government at all. 

It didn’t actually matter, when he thought about it. She was offering an out. 

It was treason.

It was freedom.

In the end, it was nearly two years after the accident before he actually managed to break out. Endless months of healing and physical therapy and being kept under watch in secret secure facilities across what he assumed to be eastern Europe. Months of quiet assumptions and double-talk and guesswork with people Owen had never seen before and who seemed to know too much about him.

Owen knew he would be fairly safe once he escaped, as long as he wasn’t careless and didn’t try to cause trouble with MI6 directly. His survival wasn’t exactly anything that would be approved of in more official channels, and certainly not considering why MI6 would have kept him a secret. Add in that he had become a rogue agent and that he had already been killed as far as the world was concerned, it was easier for him to simply disappear. He would be a waste of resources to find, considering he made it quite clear he wouldn’t be their asset any longer. 

The only people Owen knew would come looking for him were the ones who helped him get out from under MI6’s control.

It took longer than he expected, though it all made sense when Owen realized what Chimera actually was.

There wasn’t some massive secret agency, no organized group hidden and all working together. Chimera was an ideal, an ideology shared in whispers between colleagues. It was a network of people all doing what they could where they could to try and make allies and set in place the foundations for a better future. There was no leader, no single person who sent down commands, no board that made all of the decisions. It was driven by cohesion, a near fanatical belief and drive to achieve their shared vision. People of power, certainly, but not only that. They were everywhere, worming their way into existing systems and governments, using what they could access rather than drawing attention by building something on their own. 

Owen had never seen anything quite like it before. 

Working with them started slowly. Owen wasn’t suited to civilian life, and he knew it. It was too easy to simply act on the information he was sent. He was never given orders, never explicitly asked, simply presented with a glaring issue and left to do what he wanted about it. Owen knew he was being directed and groomed into action. He was hesitant, and Owen was unwilling to become another tool to be used by some other set of hands, but Chimera simply didn’t seem to work like anything Owen had known. There were no handlers, no explicit mission parameters, no rules or guidelines to play by- only the goals and the people who would they all thought would be best suited to achieve them. 

Owen began to follow up on more and more of the information, and as he did he ran into more and more people who seemed to have been involved for years. It wasn’t all that difficult to make the right friends and find the people with real power who had associated themselves with Chimera’s goal. The longer Owen stayed involved, the more people he met, the more he heard, the easier it was to believe in. 

Government run intelligence had brought him nothing but grief. He knew how the agencies worked, how jealously they all hoarded information, how desperately they tried to steal and one up anyone they could, to get blackmail on anyone with any scrap of power, be it friend or foe. Owen knew how freely they spent lives in order to trade in secrets that might never see the light of day, or for blackmail that ended up useless and destroyed when public opinion turned the right way or a bullet turned the wrong one. 

Owen doesn’t know who originally told him about Von Nazi’s surveillance system, isn’t sure the first time he heard the suggestion that it would better serve them than any government that would end up getting control of it. He knows that once Chimera found out about it, it was all that anyone was whispering about for months. 

He remembers the first time he was sent the mask, and the thrill that ran through him that he was being trusted to be one of the people to act. And Owen knew that it was a great show of trust, to be let in on Chimera’s prized secret. 

The deadliest man alive was possibly their greatest asset, and one carefully guarded. There were several agents working under the same alibi, under the same face, all working to confuse anyone looking for them and further Chimera’s goals. It was the closest thing to organization there was, as they all made sure to keep separate and keep the man a mystery and a danger to Chimera’s enemies. 

Owen quickly managed to worm his way into Von Nazi’s good graces. It was almost pathetically easy to manipulate the man, and it had been too long since Owen had felt comfortable stringing along a mark so blatantly. He had forgotten the delight in simply being leagues beyond whatever mark he had been given, at being unflinchingly confident in his own ability. 

The complacency he had let himself fall into made seeing Curt again all the more shocking. 

He knew Curt had survived, but there was a world of difference between secondhand rumors and blurred and dated photographs and actually having the man in front of him again. It was overwhelming, and in the stunned shock of the moment, Owen felt the coil of hatred wrap around him.

It didn’t really hit him until he had left, how strong the feeling had been. Everything Owen had fought through, everything he had had to claw himself back from, and Curt had the audacity to just... keep going. To be here, now, when things were meant to be getting better, when Owen was meant to be better. Seeing him brought it all back, and Owen felt as if he was on an edge, as if everything he had spent years trying to fix was about to come crashing back down around him. 

It struck him suddenly. 

Curt would always be there, and Curt would always hurt him. 

It was something Owen knew he couldn’t afford.

And when he’s torturing Curt, it’s easy to just let the anger fill him up and blind him. It was easier to stop and just to think of revenge and how Curt deserved, for  _ once _ , to hurt as much as Owen had hurt. To make Curt feel every day of pain that he had felt, waiting for help that never came. To feel the fear Owen remembered every time they worked together, that something would go wrong, that one of them wouldn’t make it back. 

After everything that Owen had done to get himself back to something that just barely reminded him of who he had been, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Part of him was screaming that hurting Curt was wrong, that this was wrong, that he had to stop and think and remember, but the pain and the call of the blood of his ears was louder. The dark burn of the anger and the hate filled him to the exclusion of all else, and Owen knew there was only one end to it all.

And he was on the ground, and Owen had the shot lined up, and he knew that Curt wasn’t wearing a vest. All it would take was a single shot. Everything would be over, all the pain and the worry and the memories could fade away, they could heal. Owen could finally grieve and move on, he wouldn’t be trapped with the anger and the hate. 

He pulled the trigger, and Owen realized too late that he was shaking. 

The shot missed its mark.

Owen watched Tatiana drag Curt from the room, slowly rising back to his feet. Owen thought about going after them, but there wasn’t a point. They would be back. Curt wouldn’t sit by and let Von Nazi’s plan go by without doing something, and Owen would have his chance then. He just had to wait. 

Curt proved him right, of course. Twice over, in fact. 

And then it was the end, and Owen had what he came for, and he heard himself start to  _ speak _ . 

He knew he shouldn’t have spoken about Chimera. He knew that just bringing it up to Curt was a betrayal of their entire network. But Owen knew that no matter how loud and vengeful the voice in his ear seemed to whisper, he wouldn’t just be able to kill Curt, not point blank. Not without something more. The words kept coming, and Curt was too much of himself, and Owen couldn’t stand it. It hurt, to see him so confident, to see him standing on the wrong side. It hurt to see Curt standing beside someone else, and Owen suddenly needed desperately to make it stop.

The cruel and hateful thing seemed to purr in his chest when he dropped the accent, when Owen watched the horrified look that spread across Curt’s face when he took off the mask, and the words kept coming. Owen couldn’t stop himself. He had to make it worse so he could feel something else, could feel  _ anything _ else but the poisonous hurt that was trying to creep in and drown him. 

Shooting the informant was little more than proving a point- if not to Curt, than to himself. Owen knew that the only way this was ending would be in blood. He hadn’t been able to shoot Curt, and if he was going to live through this, he knew he would have to. 

He felt close to an edge, and there was one place in the world Owen knew for certain where he could survive the fall. 

The race to the facility was harder than Owen expected. He knew Curt would still be healing, and Owen had underestimated how hard he would be willing to push himself in order to catch up. He hadn’t expected a fight, but Owen found himself disappointed.

He hated it. Owen hated that he cared, that he was trying so hard to make Curt angry. Owen hated that he still felt so  _ much _ . He hated that Curt just seemed to look lost. 

Curt had no right. He had no right to act betrayed, to act like he was innocent. 

Curt didn’t get to still be so  _ himself _ when Owen had lost him and shattered from it. 

Curt didn’t get to say he still loved Owen when Owen felt like  _ this _ . 

The facility was no better. It was like stepping into a nightmare. Everything was too familiar, even if the building wasn’t the same. Owen knew that Curt had to be close behind him, that he didn’t have time to stand around and feel haunted, but he couldn’t stop the memories that flashed behind his eyes as he walked through the halls.

Owen saw Curt well before Curt saw him. It was clear enough that Curt was having a similar issue. He was slow, not checking the rooms like he should have been, letting his hand trail against the wall. Owen stilled a moment. He looked tired. More tired than he should have been. He looked...

Owen killed the thought. 

Only one of them would be leaving.

Owen didn’t want to die again.

He had his gun drawn before he fully realized it. 

If this was the end, Owen wanted Curt to know just how deeply it ran, how bad the hurt. He needed to see the light gone. Owen had to know Curt was as broken as he had been before he could walk away. As broken as he still felt. Curt had to see how it was all falling apart, how it already had. He had to understand. He had to know there was no going back. 

And then.

And then.

And then Curt didn’t take the shot.

He was shaking. Owen watched the gun carefully as it dropped away from him. 

Curt was shaking, and hurt, and something was  _ wrong _ , and he still...

Owen felt the tide of anger rise up. After everything, Curt still thought there was something to save. That there was anything left after what they had been through, after everything he had done. As if any apology could salvage what Owen had gone through, could make it better, easier to live with. 

As if there was any turning back from the life Owen had salvaged for himself, as if they could just go back and not face any consequences. As if there was a future ahead of them.

Owen stilled. 

Curt had pointed the gun at him.

Owen had forgotten about the gun. 

In an instant, years of pain crashed into him. Betrayal and heartbreak and the image of Curt, changed, on the wrong side, that was seared into him. It should have felt like victory, all of the hate finally being justified in the coldness he saw when Curt’s eyes met his own. 

It just felt sour.

And then Curt shifted, and the coldness left his eyes and was replaced with something tired and empty that chilled Owen’s heart. The gun left Owen’s head, and he watched, frozen, as Curt put it to his own. 

“What is this.”

Curt wasn’t meant to break the script. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. 

He wasn’t meant to break like  _ this _ . 

“Curt.”   


Owen saw Curt flinch when he said his name. Curt took a step away from him, stumbling back against the wall. 

“Owen, please.” 

Hearing Curt’s voice break sent a spike of fear through Owen, despite himself. 

“Put the gun down, Curt.” Owen took a step closer. “You need to listen to me."

“Please. Just...”

Something was wrong, more wrong than he had realized. 

“You need to  _ listen _ to me.”

“I... _ Owen. _ ”

Curt had been hurt before. He had been nearly dead, he had been captured, and tortured, he had been broken down. Owen had seen it. He had been there. He had seen Curt cry and break down and fall apart when they had come back from a bad mission and this was nothing like anything Owen knew. 

Something was  _ wrong _ . Something new. 

“Curt. Curt, give me the gun.”

Owen sucked in a breath when he saw Curt’s finger twitch on the trigger. 

“No, no it’s me, it  _ has _ to be me. I... I’m. I’m sorry.”

Owen moved before Curt had even finished speaking. The crack of the shot going off rang in his ears, and Owen felt like his heart was about to beat out of his chest. 

“What are you doing”

Owen uncurled Curt’s fingers from the gun and pulled it away from him, tossing it on the stairs behind him. Now that he was close, he could feel the heat that was radiating off of him. Curt twisted weakly, and that he couldn’t seem to break himself free only drove home the wrongness of it all. 

“Curt, you’re burning up. What...”

Curt had been... well, not fine, but capable in the hours before. He had followed Owen here, they had fought. He should have been fine. There wasn’t... there shouldn’t have been anything that would have reduced him to this, not unless...

Any last traces of the anger that had felt so all consuming only minutes before vanished as Owen felt the sinking dread fill him. Curt was easy to move, and Owen flinched when he saw the clearly untreated and infected gunshot wound. 

““Did you not... Curt, did you not go to a  _ hospital _ ? Medical? Anything? You had days after Monte Carlo, how did-”

Owen felt Curt tense under his hands. Owen sighed, bracing himself for excuses and accusations.

He wasn’t ready to look up and see Curt’s eyes glazed over and vacant. 

He wasn’t ready for Curt to collapse. 

He wasn’t ready for Curt to have a  _ seizure _ .

Owen felt frozen. He didn’t know how it had fallen apart so quickly. A day ago, hours ago, Owen had been so sure he would kill Curt. He had been so ready to pay back all the pain he had felt, to try and bleed his hurt out of himself and into anyone else. He had been desperate to feel anything else. He hadn’t been paying attention. 

Curt had never seemed small before. Even when they had been beaten and bloodied and down to their last hope, it had never been like this. Owen had never felt powerless when they were together. There had always been another enemy to shoot down, another idea, another stupid and dangerous plan that was just as likely to get them killed as it was to get them out safely. There had always been something else to try. 

There was nothing, now.

Curt was here in his arms after so long, and Owen felt as alone as he had ever been. 

Owen felt Curt stir and glanced down. The tired smile that spread across Curt’s face as he came to was too much to bear. It brought too much with it, a flood of nearly forgotten memories Owen had worked too hard to lock away. It was a smile that was too open, too full of love and affection. Owen hadn’t thought he would ever see it again.

“Now I know that spy extraordinaire Owen Carvour isn’t looking so worried over me, surely?” 

Owen could barely speak past the lump in his throat. 

“Curt, I...”

“I know we must have been cutting it close, but it couldn’t have been  _ that _ close Owen, what happened?”

“You... Curt, you-”

“Where...” Curt tried to sit up, looking around. “Did the... did the explosives not go off?”

“What?”

“Or did we just not get out?” Curt was quiet for a moment. “No... wait. This isn’t... this isn’t the same building. It’s close but... no. Owen, where are we?”

“Curt, we... you-”

“I got hit? For you to have that look on your face and for me to not remember it must’ve been something bad but-”

“No, it’s not-”

“-that isn’t right either.” 

Curt’s eyes darted around the room, trying to puzzle out what had happened. Owen could see the moment the memories snapped into place. 

“It’s not... it’s not then. We didn’t get out. Not together.”

Curt reached up and touched Owen’s face. It felt like a brand. 

“You have a new scar, here.”

“I have... I have quite a lot of new scars.”

Curt was quiet, his voice barely above a whisper. It still seemed loud in the empty room. 

“My fault.”

“Curt...”

“All of this is my fault. I should’ve listened to you years ago.”

Owen couldn’t find the right words.

“I... you should have but-”

“M’sorry I shot you.”

Owen paused. Curt didn’t seem to realize.

“Should’ve listened and pulled the trigger the first time. Can’t ever get it right.”

“Curt, what are you talking about?”

“Before. No, after you, before... this.” 

Curt’s hand slipped down and rested over Owen’s heart. 

“Got better, I think.” He glanced up at Owen. “Maybe not. M’sorry.”

Curt sighed, and Owen could feel his exhaustion. He seemed to dull, to disappear into the dull metal around them. 

“I do, by th’way.” 

“You do what, Curt?”

“St’ll love you. A’ways have.” 

Owen looked down at him. Curt was fading again. He needed to have been in the hospital hours ago. Days ago, even. He wouldn’t survive if Owen walked away. No one knew where they were. Curt had given up his tracker- as far as Owen could tell, the only thing he actually had with him was the gun that Owen had tossed aside. No one would be coming. Curt was alone and broken down and entirely powerless. It was everything Owen had been waiting for four years to see.

Owen stood up. He had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that that cliffhanger is brutal. It's meant to be. I do not apologize.
> 
> Fun fact: this was originally a one shot I had planned to put in after this was complete, but I liked it more trimmed down and stuck in as a chapter so here it is.
> 
> I know this is later than my normal week block. The next/last chapter will also probably be a bit late. It's coming, it's just that the world is sort of falling apart and fic- especially fic that does not want to be written- takes time I don't always have.
> 
> Edit 7/1: I'm not dead, and this isn't abandoned. I've been low on time and I've been having debates over the pacing/structure, and the draft has been sitting around. I am working, but it will be slow. I love you all, and I have immeasurable thanks for all of those still reading and sending kudos! New update soon!


	9. Goodnight, Agent Mega

Awareness came back to him like a car crash, the numb comfort of unconsciousness vanishing in a sudden impact and a wash of pain.

Breathing _hurt_.

The soft blip and hum of machinery and the oppressive light that bled through his eyelids could only mean that he had managed to wind up in a hospital, though he knew he wouldn’t have made it on his own. Curt didn’t have the best track record waking up in hospitals, and considering his last clear memories were of chasing down Owen, there wasn’t actually any guarantee he was any safer now than he was before. The explanations that flashed through his mind weren’t exactly encouraging. Curt started to shift, reluctantly opening his eyes, only to choke back a groan. 

He would have to amend his earlier thought. 

_Everything_ hurt. 

He fought back the cough he could feel building in his chest and glanced around the room. He was almost surprised at how mundane it seemed. Curt had half expected to have been tied down in some well hidden Chimera facility or left to be dragged home by his own people which... honestly would have probably looked much the same, at least while Cynthia and the rest decided how much of a liability he was. 

There were no restraints, and while Curt wasn’t about to get up and investigate, it didn’t seem like the door was even locked. Either he had been brought to a civilian hospital, or he was being very thoroughly played. From the muffled voices that seemed to be passing by his room, he hadn’t even left eastern Europe. His Russian was a bit too specialized to really follow the conversations, but nothing seemed to strike him as particularly threatening. Civilian hospital, then.

Of all the places he expected to wake up in, this seemed like the best option he could have hoped for. 

Curt steeled himself and tried to sit up, but the screaming fire in his side and through his head laid him out again. He could tell he was more hurt than he had thought, and it was all too clear now that the adrenaline and drive had finally left him. Most of the pain seemed to come from his stomach and the gunshot, but Curt had been shot before and recovery never felt quite like this. He remembered the fever heat and the shaking delirium, the mix of memories that he still couldn’t quite straighten out. 

The steady beep of the machines staggered as Curt grit his teeth and pulled himself up the bed. If his memories were still foggy, he needed to see how hurt he still was for himself. He had been running on more bruises and breaks than he was used to, and if he was going to break himself out, he would need to be ready to adjust. 

Curt pulled back the sheet and started to tug at the bandages, trying to ignore that he seemed to be made up of more bruises than clear skin when he heard a quiet scoff from the corner.

“It was actually quite a challenge to get you here, so if you could just leave that be, Curt.”

Curt’s eyes shot up, meeting Owen’s from across the room. He was leaning up against the wall, and suddenly the weight of his eyes felt crushing. Curt let his eyes flick to the door. He hadn’t heard it open. 

“You’re not here.”

Curt could hear the desperate note in his voice. He wasn’t sure what answer would be easiest to hear.

“No, and it’s probably best that it stays that way. Lie down.”

Owen’s voice was too flat. Curt dropped back to the pillows and tried to hide his wince. The hallucinations weren’t gone, then. He hadn’t expected Owen to stick around, not really, but he had hoped... and then for the hallucinations to still be there as well, after everything. 

He supposed the guilt wasn’t gone, just different. 

“I really don’t have the energy for this. Not... not now.”

Owen crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs next to the bed. He looked tired. Curt supposed it was better than angry, though it didn’t stop the guilt and panic from clogging his throat. 

“I won’t be long. Seeing as I had been planning to kill you before today, I don’t think hearing a lecture from _me_ about how idiotic it was to chase me down in your condition is going to hold much weight.”

“You didn’t, though.”

Curt’s voice was a whisper, and Owen leaned back and ran his hand across his face. 

“No. I didn’t.”

“You saved me.”

Owen gave him a look somewhere between frustration and concern. Curt had been intimately familiar with it, a lifetime ago. It was surprising to see it again.

“I got you to a _hospital_ , somewhere you _should_ have been _days_ ago.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“No.”

“But you did.”

“I did.”

“Why?” Curt saw a shadow pass across Owen’s face. “No, actually, don’t answer. I don't think I want to hear whatever reason you’re thinking of giving me.”

“Nothing’s changed, Curt.”

“Everything changed, Owen. You’re _alive_. That... it changes a lot.”

“It would be better for both of us if you just told them you killed me. Again.”

“You _know_ they’d never believe me. Not after... I mean it isn’t exactly a secret how I... well. You know. I couldn’t... I’m not _that_ good an actor. They wouldn’t believe me.”

“You’ll only be making things harder on the both of us if they know what you... what happened.”

“Please just...” Curt sighed and tipped his head back. “What is it that you even want me to do, Owen? What do you want?”

“You don’t _have_ to tell them anything. Walk away, Curt. Go _home_.”

“I can’t just... what you’re- what _Chimera_ is doing is wrong, Owen.”

“This isn’t going to go away. I’m asking you nicely, and I’m only going to give you this chance one time. Don't. Get. Involved.”

“I can’t make that promise. I’m not going to stand back and let you- let Chimera do whatever they like.”

“Explain to me how what we’re doing is any different from what any government- what _your_ government- is doing? We’re just doing it all on our own. This isn’t some grand evil plot, Curt, it’s just the future. Fighting it is just going to get you killed.”

“I... I know. I _know_ , Owen. I know that this is all... I’m not... you don’t have to tell me. I don’t want or need to hear it from you, whatever you might think.”

“Listen Curt, just because I cou- didn’t- pull the trigger this time doesn’t mean someone else won’t. It doesn’t mean that _I_ won’t, next time, if you keep interfering.”

Curt couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the threat.

“As if the danger ever stopped us before.”

Owen sighed. He was quiet for a long moment, and when his voice came he didn’t meet Curt’s eyes. 

“I really wish I could let you go, Curt. I really do.”

Curt looked at him. For a moment, it was all too easy to forget that Owen wasn’t really there. 

“You’re not staying.” 

It isn’t a question.

“No.”

“You’re going back. To work for them.”

“For once, Curt, I actually believe in the people I’m working for. And there’s... there’s nothing left for me with MI6. Any agency, really. You know that.”

“And why not follow your own plan? Let them think I shot you. Walk away. Lie low, leave this behind. You could stay.”

Even as the words leave his mouth, Curt regrets them. He knows that he and Owen are forged in the same fires. They could never be anything else. 

“No, I know. You couldn’t, I can’t... I won’t ask that of you. I just... I don’t know what to say to you, anymore. I don’t think there’s anything I can say that would change your mind. Just...” 

Curt took a breath to stop his voice from breaking. 

“Just go. You’re leaving, so leave. I can’t... you’re not even _here_. I’m not going to fight with you.”

Owen opened his mouth and Curt could see that whatever questions were waiting on his tongue were going to be too exhausting to even think about. He knew if Owen started, he wouldn’t stop until he had wrung out the last few secrets Curt had left. 

“Please, Owen. Don’t. Whatever it is, just don’t.”

“There’s something I think we need to talk about, Curt.”

“What more could we possibly have to talk about. What is there to know?”

“You said you _shot_ me.”

Curt narrowed his eyes. He didn’t remember mentioning his breakdown to the real Owen, but the haze surrounding his memories of the other night still hadn’t cleared and he supposed it could have happened. Bringing it up now seemed out of the usual set of taunts his hallucination set upon him. 

“You say that like it’s a surprise.” 

“I think it’s something I would have remembered.”

“Do you really need me to go over it again?” Curt scoffed “Are you... has all of this not been _enough_ for you? Do you really want me to say it?”

“I think I’d like the explanation from you, Curt.”

Owen was too still. Curt peered at him, but Owen wouldn’t meet his gaze. 

“Why are you doing this?”

“You... something is wrong. Something you didn’t tell me, but... I think I need to hear it. I think I need to know.”

“How... you already... Owen, has all of this not been-”

“I _want_ to hear it from you, Curt. I want you to tell me.”

Owen still had that same clipped, self-assured tone. It was too empty. Curt felt the exhaustion and the indignation boiling over in equal measure. He screwed his eyes shut and turned away. 

“You’re not even real! You... you should already _know_! You’re not here, you’re just in my head, just like you’ve _always_ been. Just another _fucking_ hallucination because I’m too pathetic to live without you, even if...”

Curt heard Owen’s sharp inhalation, but he couldn’t bring himself to look.

“You’re alive, Owen, and you still hate me, and I’m still so fucking guilty because it’s all somehow _worse_ than if you had just died, and I _hate_ myself for even _thinking_ that you being alive could ever be worse. And now you’re gone again, and I’ve made it all so much worse than before.”

The heart rate monitor tripped over his panic. 

“I don’t know what I’m going to _do._ I’ll be lucky if I have my job, and even if I do there’s no chance I’ll be back in the field, not after this, not when they realize what I’ve done. This isn’t just going rogue, I’m... I’m compromised. I’ll be a liability, if they haven’t just written me off entirely. If they don’t think I know too much. There’s nothing to go back to. And _you_ , knowing you’re _alive_ , that you’re somewhere out there and that you _hate me_ , I-”

A hand rested over his, and all of the words fell away. 

His mind had played any number of tricks on him before. The feeling of breath on the back of his neck, of a hand just barely brushing across his own. Curt was more than used to the fleeting sensations that let him pretend he wasn’t still alone.

Never once had the hallucinations ever actually touched him. 

Curt let his fingers curl around the hand in his, breathing out relief when they didn’t disappear. 

“You... you’re real. This isn’t a hallucination. You’re still here.”

Owen’s hand tightened around his.

“I didn’t expect you to be here. To really... I thought... you...”

“Is it really such a surprise? Quite a lot of work to get you here, I should at least get to see the results.”

“Walking away would have... we would have been even, at least.”

Owen drew back.

“Oh, Curt. We’ve never been even.”

The room seemed colder.

“I see. You’ve made your point then. I don’t... I’m not going to have this fight again.”

“Curt-”

“No. No, you... say whatever you came here to say. Why else would you be here, Owen?”

Owen stood up and turned away. Curt couldn’t help but feel indignant.

“If you’re not going to _say_ anything, you can go. It’s clear I’m not enough to stop you.”

The bitterness in his voice was sharper than he had intended, but Curt couldn’t bring himself to care. It served to get Owen to look at him again, at least.

“That’s enough.”

Curt struggled to sit up.

“You don’t- ugh- you don’t get to do this.”

“”Would you just-”

“Say what you’re here to say Owen, or- mmph- get out.”

“Lay _down_ , Curt.”

“Stop pretending you _care_!”

Owen slammed his hand down on the table.

“Damn it Curt! Of course I _care_. None of this would even be happening if I didn’t bloody _care_.”

“What do you _want,_ Owen.”

“I wanted to know what’s _wrong_! I... you... this isn’t _you_ , Curt, I needed to know what _changed_.”

“What _happened_ to me was that I had to deal with the fact that I _killed_ you. It fucking _broke_ me Owen. It’s not exactly a mystery how I ended up here.”

“I read your damn chart, Curt.” Owen huffed.

“And I’m sure it’s a delight. Care to share your observations with the class?”

“Exactly how many times did you nearly drink yourself to death in order to get an actual no-”

“You’re surprised about the _drinking_? Really?”

“I expected better.”

“Oh, spare me. I’ve heard it all already. From you, in fact! Or for whatever my broken mind passed off as you.”

“Do you even- your doctors aren’t even sure how you’re _alive_. Between what I-” Owen bit back the words. Curt rolled his eyes. 

“You had all the symptoms of withdrawal. On top of being dangerously exhausted, _and_ on top of the infection. You’re tearing yourself apart, Curt.”

“Nothing I haven’t been doing for years. Even before all...” Curt weakly waved his hand.

“I- damn it, Curt! This isn’t the same and you know it.”

“I _know_. God, Owen, I know. I’ve learned to live with it. What else can I do? What _is_ there to do? I can’t stop feeling guilty. I can’t just _unbreak_ my brain. I can’t just stop _missing_ you. You’re alive and it should change everything but you’re just as gone as you were before.”

Owen leaned heavily on the back of the chair before collapsing into it like his strings had been cut. 

“I should have... before, I’d thought something...I didn’t want-”

“Would it have changed anything? If you’d known?”

“It might have. Knowing you still...”

“I’m not going to ask if you... I won’t ask you to forgive me, Owen. God know I don’t-”

“I think I want to.”

If Curt hadn’t been watching him, he wouldn’t have even known Owen had spoken.

“There’s... Curt, there’s a lot I still have to... a lot has changed, I think.”

Curt’s hand settled over the bandages and he shifted his jaw, the soreness not yet faded, even under the more pressing aches. Owen’s eyes caught the movement, and for a moment there was something almost like regret shining behind them.

“I don’t want to be angry at you anymore. I don’t want to keep carrying you with me. I need time, now that...” Owen gathered himself. “And I think you need it too.”

“Don’t make excuses for leaving, it doesn’t suit you. Don’t make it sound like this is all for my benefit. I don’t want you to go, Owen.”

“Staying isn’t an option, love.”

“What are we doing, Owen? Where do we even go from here?”

“You won’t kill me. I can’t go back with you. And you won’t come with _me_ , so-”

“Chimera is _wrong_ , Owen-”

“ _So,_ I suppose I’m saying... goodbye.”

The air was heavy, and Curt leaned back under the weight. He was tired.

“Just like that? I feel that we owe each other more than... this.”

Owen shook his head and stood up again. Curt could see he was restless, that everything was weighing on Owen the same as it weighed on him.

“We aren’t... Curt, this... we aren’t going to- _this_ isn’t going to work. It barely worked for us _before_. This is all there is for us. I’ve made my decision, Curt. And I think you’ve made yours.”

“I can’t just let you do this. You know I can’t, Owen. I’m going to come after you. I always have. I’ll stop you.”

Owen laughed.

“You’ll try.”

“Owen, I-”

The sound of footsteps and voices outside the door cut him short. Owen stepped back, eyes on the door, staying out of sight if someone were to glance inside. Curt wasn’t sure why he felt disappointed.

“I really shouldn’t be surprised that no one knows you’re here.”

“I said as much, yes. I’ve drawn enough attention to myself in leaving you alive as it is. I’d rather not get caught up in all this-” Owen waved his hand towards the doors. “-paperwork, if I can. You know how things are. Always simpler to leave someone on the doorstep, find a concerned passerby to call something in rather than making it seem personal.”

Owen glanced down at his watch. 

“They’ll be doing rounds soon, and it’s getting late. I believe that would be my cue to go. I’m afraid I can’t stick around much longer, and I doubt your friends would be willing to consider our... history. I’m sure they’ll be here by the morning, and I quite like my freedoms as they are.”

Owen glanced at the door for a moment before nodding to himself. In a moment, he was next to the bed and had grabbed Curt’s arm, pressing it down against the sheets. Curt tried to pull himself free, but couldn’t manage the leverage to twist free without pain lancing through his side.

“I would be more sorry about this if I didn’t think you needed it.”

Curt’s eyes widened as Owen pulled a syringe out and reached for the IV.

“Owen, what are you... stop.”

“If I intended to hurt you, you wouldn’t have woken up, Curt. Try not to insult me. This is just something to help you relax. Wouldn’t want you to have to face their questions too soon, love. Not good for recovery, I’ve been told.”

Curt pulled at Owen’s hand, trying to pull out the IV, but Owen slapped his hand away. Curt watched the drip weakly as Owen managed to empty the syringe. There really wasn’t a point to fighting back- Owen had a point, and Curt wasn’t in a state to do anything regardless. 

“I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again. Who knows, it may even be under more... understanding circumstances.”

Curt could feel whatever Owen had given him slipping through his system, though it was hard to tell where the drugs began and his own exhaustion ended. His limbs felt heavy, and he could feel the darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.

“Goodnight, Agent Mega.”

Curt’s eyes slipped shut, and while he couldn’t be sure, he swore he felt the gentle brush of lips against his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with a LONG overdue chapter! All that's left is the epilogue, and while I'd like to say it'll be finished soon, I also just spent nearly two months away from my weekly update fic, so no promises.
> 
> Also I have a very fun "head" canon (its canon, fight me) about how Curt seemed to be totally OK in the musical, and it's that drinking a test tube filled with experimental tissue regeneration stem cell research is actually incredibly good for your health, and can in fact keep you on your feet despite being tortured and shot in the abdomen.
> 
> #sequelbait
> 
> UPDATE 9/27: I promise. I promise I see this fic. I'm working through the last chapter, and the thought of this fic haunts me daily. I should have a bit of extra time in the next few weeks, so look forward to that! I can't say how much the lingering kudos and reads have meant to me this year.


	10. A New World Awaits Us

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long everyone, but it's finally here. I want to thank everyone who's stuck around this year and commented on this and sent kudos, because you've all been the force that has gotten me through to the end of this monster thats lived in my head the past 8 months.

Awareness came back slowly, a lingering haze of painkillers and the fading weight of whatever sedatives were still in his system dulling the world to a murmur. 

A sigh crept softly past his lips.

The world was dulled, the hum of the medical equipment and the warm glow behind his eyelids coaxing him back from unconsciousness. Everything was blurred and ethereal, dreamlike, and Curt let himself float in the space between sleep and wakefulness. There was warmth and comfort and a lingering safety that Curt couldn’t explain, and he let the feelings drift past him, content to rest a moment more. He knew there would be too much to do when he was awake, but now they felt like worries for another life. He had earned his rest, and waking was a trouble beyond him.

In the end, it was waking up that had been the easy part. Dealing with the security that had descended on the hospital to make sure that he wasn’t going to be a threat? Much more difficult to deal with. 

What had started out as quiet, bemused voices arguing over his charts and who he might have been had quickly escalated into arguments and demands to clear the room. The voices gradually became more familiar and the arguments more personal. When he heard snippets of a discussion on what would be done with him, Curt dimly realized he would probably be better off properly unconscious while they decided. 

Whatever story Barb had ended up telling Cynthia and the agency was probably going to be the most sympathetic story he’d get, and the longer he could stay here and drift in and out of awareness, the longer he could put off the inevitable interrogation about what the hell he had been thinking.

He could only hope that Barb didn’t know it had been _Owen_ he was after, in the end. If she had mentioned him... she hadn’t been in the room, and he hadn’t had her comm line open when he had taken the mask off, but Curt knew better than to think she wouldn’t have found out. Tatiana knew, and she had known enough to want to know _more_ , and if she had tried to fish for any information from Barb then… well. Curt just had to hope she wouldn’t have mentioned it. 

Telling Cynthia or anyone else that Owen was still alive wasn’t an option. To say that not only was he alive, but a rogue agent? To mention he was working for the enemy? The target would never be off his back. Knowing Cynthia’s capability to hold a grudge, it was as likely as not that she would personally make sure Owen wouldn’t be an issue ever again. She had liked him too much to tolerate the idea that he had gone bad. 

Curt supposed that, considering the buzz around him seemed to be more focused on keeping an eye on him and arranging for him to be transferred stateside, Barb couldn’t have told them too much. They hadn’t bothered to send in the interrogators to force answers out of him when he was still disoriented, so Curt assumed he was safe on that front, at least. He could have sworn that he had heard Cynthia trying to get to him several times, both before and after he had been flown back to Washington, but she apparently hadn’t managed to break through the veritable wall of scientists that had been constantly coming and going since he had arrived.

He hadn’t been entirely sure he _wanted_ to know why they had decided to run what must have been every test imaginable on him, and for the first few days he was content enough to just stay quiet and pretend he wasn’t curious about it. Considering whatever they were focused on seemed to be delaying him facing the consequences of his actions and, more importantly, delaying having to face Cynthia’s anger, Curt couldn’t mind being a lab rat too much. 

When he finally caved and asked what they had been looking for, he wished he hadn’t asked.

As it turned out, drinking experimental regenerative stem cell research had a significant effect on one’s healing factor.

Significant enough to overcome fairly extensive torture and what should have been a fatal gunshot wound, at least.

Apparently, Owen’s aim had only been off by enough to kill him _slowly_. 

Curt hadn’t wanted to examine how he felt about that. Once the rumor got out about what had happened to him, he didn’t have the time to. 

It seemed like everyone in the agency had wanted to run some sort of experiment or trial to test his limits or figure out how to recreate what had happened to him. Curt wasn’t sure who exactly had been responsible for denying some of the more outlandish and painful requests, but he made a note to try and find out and thank them. The near manic look in the eyes of some of the doctors that had been working with him was unsettling at the best of times, and he didn’t want to find out what they would do if they had free reign to experiment.

It ended up taking several weeks before Cynthia finally stormed the infirmary ward they had been keeping him in and demanded that everyone stop poking at him for long enough for her to actually debrief him and have him deal with the consequences she’d been trying desperately to get a handle on while he had been lying unconscious or playing lab rat.

“Where is he? I know you have his room locked down, I’m the damn one who signed off on the paperwork! You’ve had plenty of time to stare at him, and God knows he doesn’t need the ego boost. Now I need to have him start taking some responsibility for this fucking mess before I’m angry enough to go ahead and kill him myself.”

Curt looked up at the door to his room and blinked. He took a moment to center himself as he heard the heels clicking angrily down the hall. The door slammed open, and he held back a sigh. 

“Hello, Cynthia.”

She scoffed, crossing the room and dropping a pile of folders at the foot of his bed. 

“Is that all you have to say to me, Mega? I’d have expected a lot more groveling, some begging for your job, maybe some excuses as to why I should be even _considering_ letting you ever leave this fucking building again.”

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear them. Or that they’d even matter.” Curt said, dropping his head back against the pillows.

“Oh now he’s sensible, of course he is.” Cynthia dragged one of the chairs over to his bedside and sat down harshly. “After you cause who knows how many international incidents, been _directly_ involved in the assassination of a world leader who, I might add, was meant to be a key part in getting a step up in the fucking _war_ we’re in… but no, _now_ you know when to shut your damn mouth.”

Curt started counting ceiling tiles, desperate not to meet her eyes. 

“What do you want from me, Cynthia?”

“First of all, I’d like to hear the reason why you decided to disobey _several_ direct orders, why you disappeared and went fully off the grid, and mainly I’d like to know why you showed back up mostly dead in some backwoods Russian hospital a few days later.”

“Has there been an official report yet?” Curt asked, risking a glance at her. 

“Officially? No. Unofficially, however, I’ve heard quite the interesting story from Ms. Larvernor, so you’ve got one chance to make this good, Mega.” She didn’t seem happy, but she also hadn’t shot him yet so he’d take it as a win.

“The simple version? All of this- the assassination, the bomb, Von Nazi… it was all just a cover up. The deadliest man alive works for a larger organization. All of this was just… them playing us for a better hand. They didn’t care about any of it, not really.”

“Right.” Cynthia said, voice flat.

Curt frowned and tried to sit up further, huffing when felt the stiffness that had set into his body.

“I wasn’t exactly expecting this. It was going to be a kidnapping- they told me it was going to be a kidnapping before they tried to _kill me_. How was I supposed to know they’d be so willing to just kill their leverage. You’d already pulled me, I fucked up, and they were still out there. What was I meant to do? You can’t believe I’d just go back to the agency, not without at least _trying_ to fix it.”

Cynthia clicked her tongue. “And the dead agent?”

“We didn’t know what we were walking into. I didn’t know about Chimera, it was just meant to be Von Nazi, and we’ve dealt with him before. We had it under control until the deadliest man went rogue and killed Von Nazi and our agent. Bragged about an offshore surveillance facility before he left. I went after him, and Barb tracked down the facility. It went better for her than it did for me, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“I did notice. Care to elaborate on that, agent? Perhaps explain to me how you wound up basically dead yourself?”

“We fought. I was already in bad shape from before the gala, and chasing him across half of Europe overnight didn’t help me any. Never had quite enough time to recover from Monte Carlo. It figures he got the upper hand on me, at that point. I don’t think he expected me to be getting back up. From what I’ve heard, I _didn’t_.” Curt shrugged. “‘Lucky to be alive, several times over’ I think they said. Benefits of drinking experimental research.” 

“Uh huh.” Cynthia narrowed her eyes. “And the surveillance facility?”

“I wouldn’t know. Barb was the one looking for it. I assume she managed on her ow-”

“Shut up. I’m asking what happened to the Russian agent you seemed to be all chummy with, Mega. Where is she?” 

Curt eyed her warily. “I don’t-”

“And don’t-” Cynthia cut in “-bother trying to say you don’t know what I’m talking about. I know she was working with you after the gala. Book less conspicuous flights in the future.”

“Do I have a _future_ to plan for, Cynthia? What more do you want from me?” A wave of exhaustion seemed to wash over him, and Curt laid back down, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know where she went. She wanted to drop off the grid for good, try and retire. If she’s managed to go underground already, I doubt she’ll be coming back soon. Especially if you have feelers out looking for her.”

“This is not the time to play games with me, agent. It’s been nearly two weeks of cleaning up your mess and having to play nice with some of the _stupidest_ idiots I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet- that doesn’t leave this room- and... no, shut your mouth, Mega.” Cynthia scowled at him. “I might be glad you’re alive, but that's just because if anyone’s going to kill you for this, it’s going to be _me_.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. 

“I’m not going to waste my time asking what it is you aren’t telling me, agent. And don’t insult me by pretending that’s anywhere _near_ the entire story. Larvernor’s already tried it, covering for that fucking Russian woman.”

Curt watched her carefully. “You didn’t actually answer me, you know. What’s next? I can’t imagine you would’ve waited this long if you were _actually_ just going to have me killed, no matter what kinds of tests they wanted to run on me.”

“I haven’t deci-”

“You wouldn’t have come here if you hadn’t already made up your mind. You wouldn’t waste your time.”

“Don’t interrupt. I haven’t decided exactly how I’m going to _eviscerate you_ yet, and that means I need to make sure you don’t go running off again and wind up getting yourself killed by someone else.”

Curt paused, filing the threat away with the countless others Cynthia had leveled at him over the years. 

“So… I’m keeping my job?” 

“What you’re _doing_ is staying on a very, _very_ short least until you’ve managed to convince me and everyone else that I can afford to have you in the field again. It might surprise you, Mega, but there _are_ actually other spies in this agency. If you want any breathing room sometime in the next, say… decade? You’re going to make sure I don’t regret this.”

Cynthia stood up and dug through the files she had thrown on his bed for a moment before tossing one at him. 

“You have two months. I don’t need to tell you that we’ll be watching, or that I expect to see you back and filing paperwork the _instant_ that timer runs out.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before storming out of the room only slightly less violently than she had entered it. Curt picked up the folder and took a deep breath. Two months was longer than he had expected, although knowing Cynthia his timer had probably started as soon as he had woken up properly.

Flipping through the release documents and the treatment plan that had been set up for him, it seemed like she had given him the absolute minimum recovery time that was required for near-death injuries. Even then, it seemed like Cynthia had managed to cut it shorter by a few weeks by citing his new healing factor. Curt knew from experience that the physical therapy regimen alone was shorter than it should have been. 

All in all, it was a fairly grim prospect for the next eight weeks, with the future looking rather dull for a long while after as well. They had already allocated one of the apartments near the bureau for him to stay in while he was in recovery- clearly he wasn’t trusted enough to not be considered a security risk, even if they were willing to reinstate him. All of those apartments were monitored to hell and back, and Curt knew he’d be lucky to have a neighbor that _wasn’t_ actively reporting back on everything he did. 

As long as he was following through with Cynthia’s deal, he would be under observation. Even if he turned them down and just went home, he was sure to have some sort of security watching him. He would be surprised if they hadn’t gone and bugged his house while he had been in the hospital.

It was going to make looking into Chimera nearly impossible, never mind trying to look into anything regarding Owen.

Curt flexed his hand, the ghostly feeling of fingers still haunting him. He wanted it to have been real, that somehow Owen cared enough to make sure Curt had survived. It was tempting, beyond tempting, to believe. It was a chance for forgiveness that Curt had believed wasn’t ever going to be possible. It was impossibly alluring to even think about. 

He glanced down at the file in his lap. There would be consequences, security. He was going to be under watch for a long time. It was the least he could have expected, really. But… if all Cynthia was willing to do _now_ was to slap his wrist and tell him to be careful, there probably wasn’t going to be much worse coming down on him, at least not for this. He had a chance to breathe, to slow down for once and rebuild his life again, to start over without Owen’s shadow haunting him. He had spent years trying and failing to do exactly that.

Curt shook his head. He never did know when to slow down. 

Going after Owen would be hard, and going after Chimera would be practically impossible if he didn’t have anyone backing him, Even if _Owen_ wasn’t willing to kill him, it was obvious enough that Curt couldn’t do this alone. He had gone in with backup and more support than he had ever bothered with back in the day, and he had still landed himself in the hospital. It was unlikely that he’d even be able to even find out what Chimera was up to, never mind actually finding out in time to stop them or even just slow them down. As nice as it would be to avoid everyone breathing down his neck for even longer, it would be worth laying low and playing nice if it meant he could have an extra hand or two to help him along.

If Owen had been real, if he had actually come, then Curt would have time. Owen would leave him out of it. Chimera wouldn’t be an issue for him if it seemed like he was making good and actually staying out of things. Even if it had just been another hallucination, even if the feeling of a too familiar hand in his was just another trick… Owen _had_ left him alive. Curt didn’t doubt that it had been Owen that had been the one to get him somewhere safer where he would be found, considering how shocked all the doctors had been to see him still breathing. It was a safe enough bet either way that as long as he was laying low and didn’t seem to be pushing the issue, he would have time.

Curt hoped it would be enough.

It would _have_ to be enough. 

The next few days felt like an eternity and Curt tried to bargain his way out of the hospital early. It ended up taking hours of promising he would rest and that he would actually show up to his physical therapy appointments and reminding all of the doctors that the agency would be keeping a close eye on him anyway, so they would be sure to know if anything actually happened to him before he actually managed to get the paperwork signed and filed away.

Curt had just finished getting properly dressed and had stepped back into his room when he felt someone slam into him.

“You’re okay! I was just so _worried_ and I knew they were going to release you soon, but I heard Cynthia had already visited and-”

Curt winced and pushed Barb off him gently. “Barb. It’s good to see you. If you could, uh…” 

“Ah! Sorry! Right, still… still healing, I guess? Sorry, I just… I’m glad you’re alright.” Barb stepped back quickly, smoothing out her coat. “So you… I heard you’re finally getting out of here?”

Curt nodded. “Out of the hospital, at least. I don’t think they’re going to let me go anywhere for awhile. Not without a tail, at least. Or a bug, I guess. You uh… wouldn’t happen to know if…” he plucked at the clothes he had been given, curious.

She shook her head. “No. I mean, if they _did_ bug you, I don’t know about it. I don’t think they would’ve, I mean… with the detail already and then with all the departments busy since we’ve been shuffled around I-” 

“Wait, they did what?”

“Oh, yeah, you... you wouldn’t have heard.” She cocked her head to the side. “Um. After the gala and the uh… well. They asked me what happened, and I couldn’t really help but tell them about the base.” She shifted nervously, and didn’t meet his eyes. “I mean, that kind of communications network is pretty serious, and I guess when they heard me talking about it and what it could do they uh… I think they must have thought it sounded like a uh… good idea? For us?”

Curt blinked. “They…” 

Barb made a quiet noise of assent. Curt tried to cut the frustration from his voice, and didn’t quite manage.

“So the restructuring is…?”

“It seems like they want all of us focused on more uh… More _long range_ surveillance, for the time being. To see what we can do with less… um…” Barb trailed off, guiltily.

“To see what they can do with less agents.” Curt finished for her.

“I don’t think that’s-” Barb cut herself off and sighed. “Yeah. It’s still… I mean, who knows if they end up scrapping it or not, there’s still a lot of work and it’s…” 

“Yeah. I…” Curt let out a long breath. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry! I just… I didn’t know what to _tell them_ and I had to give them _something_. I mean they already knew about Tatiana, they showed me enough records and surveillance to catch me on that and I figured you wouldn’t want me to mention- uh.” Barb’s mouth snapped shut and she glanced around the room.

“It’s… no. No, it’s fine. I-” Curt steeled himself a moment before catching her eyes. “Look, Barb, I-”

“Yes?” she cut in, voice tinged with some bright note Curt pretended to miss.

“I wanted to uh… I wanted to thank you. For… I mean, for everything. I know I don’t… I know I’m…” Curt looked down, struggling to find the words. “I just wanted to thank you.”

“Curt, of course, I-”

“No, listen. I… we couldn’t have done any of this without your help. I know I brush off all this nerdy stuff you do, I know I haven’t said it before. I should have. I’m saying it now.” Curt shrugged, trying to brush off the sentiment behind it. 

Barb put her hand on his arm, smile softer and more genuine than it had been before. Curt coughed and stepped back, uncomfortable. Her smile didn’t falter, but it took on a note that Curt didn’t want to think too hard about.

He coughed again, trying to shift the tension in the room. “So uh… what did you tell them then? To uh… to get them off your back?”

She took the cue. “I just told them what I actually did. Helping patch you up after you got caught, getting you to Geneva. I just said I found you, that I didn’t know exactly how you got out. Which was true, mostly. Cynthia seemed like she already knew, anyway, and she didn’t press me on that at least. You really _should_ be more careful about covering your tracks, you know. It’s getting much easier to track someone down and-”

“Okay, I already heard that speech from Cynthia. I meant more about…” he trailed off. 

“The deadliest man?” she asked.

Curt winced at the tone in her voice, but nodded. 

“Well, I wasn’t there and you didn’t have your comms on at the time, so I don’t know what happened in that room with the informant.” she said pointedly. “But I was told by our mutual friend that you felt the need to make sure he didn’t get away, and some reasons why that might’ve been.”

Curt felt his heart skip a beat. “You didn’t tell them it was-”

“I _told them_ you felt that you couldn’t let him get away after what happened. They seemed happy enough with that.” She paused a moment, thoughtful. “They were more concerned with the assassination, to be honest. I think they were worried you were in on it somehow. It’s part of why you’ve been in here so long. Well, that and the uh… the healing thing.”

“They thought I was with Chimera?” Curt knew his horror showed on his face, but he couldn’t find the strength to care.

“I don’t know for sure!” she hurried to explain. “But with so many things happening right as you got back and with the whole situation with Tatiana and with the rumors-”

“What rumors?” Curt hated the hysterical edge that was creeping into his voice.

“Curt, I…” Barb hesitated.

“Tell me.” They both winced at the order in his voice, and Curt paused, taking a deep breath and forcing himself to relax. “Barb, please.”

She hesitated, but Curt caught her eyes and he saw his pleading win out. 

“I… Everyone knew what you were like after the accident, Curt. And then you just show up out of nowhere after four years, saying you’re totally fine? And you get sent out right away after _barely_ passing the field assessments, and with everything that happened… if people didn’t think you were some kind of plant, they just thought maybe you’d finally snapped.”

“So they investigated me.” It wasn’t a question.

“And they didn’t find anything. You’re a good man, Curt, and a good agent.” She moved to take his hand, and Curt pulled back. 

“Found enough to have eyes on me for who knows how long.” he sulked.

Barb put her hands on her hips. “It’s for your own good, you know. If Chimera came after you-”

“He w- _they_ wouldn’t.” Curt snapped.

“If they _did_ , you’d be in trouble on your own. You can’t blame Cynthia for keeping an eye on you after all this. These past few years have been hard on us, Curt. You’re not the only one who’s lost people.”

Curt paused. “What, so I just ignore all this? They don’t trust me!”

“If you’re going to do what I think you are, you’ll need me. Need all of us. So yes, Curt. You’re going to let this go. Please.”

Curt huffed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I just thought… I didn’t realize they thought I would’ve…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. I knew they’d be keeping an eye on me after the gala. They always did, after I pulled something they didn’t like. I just…”

Barb sat down next to him and patted his knee. “Things are just… things are different now. A lot has changed in the past few years Curt, and most of it wasn’t for the better. Between everything that happened with Russia and now all the whispers about the plans in Cuba… well. Everyone’s on edge.”

“I suppose I should be thankful I have a job at all, right? Wasn’t entirely sure I’d be making it out of here.” Curt’s laugh was hollow.

“Of course you still have a job. Where would we be without our best agent?” Barb elbowed him gently in the side. 

Curt had to bite back the bitter response that tried to claw out of him. “Right.”

“I know this can’t have been easy. Coming back, this whole…” Barb couldn’t seem to find the right words and just gestured vaguely. “Just… you’ve always got me in your corner. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, Barb. I know.”

She stood suddenly, moving in front of him and holding out her hand. “Good. Because _you_ need to go home and rest, agent. There’s a lot of work to do around here, and we’re going to need you in tip-top shape when you get back.”

Curt couldn’t help the small smile on his face as he took her hand, letting himself be pulled up and into a hug. “I’ll do my best. Wouldn’t want to disappoint my eyes and ears.”

Barb stepped back, hands still on his arms. “I’ll see you soon, Curt.”

“See you soon.” he echoed quietly. 

She stepped back, giving him a final smile over her shoulder as she left the room.

The door shut quietly. The light in the room suddenly seemed to dim. The air felt stale. 

Curt watched the door for a long moment. He couldn’t find the will to move, to force himself forward into the endless grinding momentum of his life that he knew would be waiting outside this room. He felt the weight of the past few weeks crash down on him, and Curt felt himself kneel underneath it.

He took a step and stumbled, and he reached out to the side of the bed to try and steady himself. Curt took a deep breath and fought off the creeping unease. 

Things were changing. Things had already changed. It was unavoidable.

Curt swore he heard a quiet chuckle behind him, but he refused to look back and check. He wouldn’t give Owen the satisfaction, not in this, not when Curt already knew Owen had been right, the _bastard_. Owen had been right about all of it.

It hit him again, that they had lied to him. Curt knew it couldn’t have just been the British agents that had gone looking for Owen’s body. He hadn’t noticed a coverup. There hadn’t been anyone that went missing, no new faces to fill a suddenly vacant position after a ‘transfer’. The secret service had known, they _had_ to have known. They just hadn’t trusted him with Owen’s survival. They had been willing to lose him over it. They had lost him over it for years, and they still hadn’t told him.

Curt knew the blow to his pride was the least of his concerns, and he knew that Owen would never let him live it down, that this was the thing to drive him over the edge. 

Curt knew they were replaceable. He knew, because he had seen it before. He had lost friends, had lost Owen, and he had watched their agencies keep ticking forward with their blood oiling the clockwork. He had seen time and time again how little they actually seemed to care about keeping everyone safe. It had always been about the end, and if ‘by whatever means necessary’ meant some sacrifices, it wasn’t ever the ones behind the desks that were broken and bleeding for it. 

This time it had been Curt, and it was only his sheer dumb luck that he was left alive at the end of it all. 

They didn’t even believe in him. 

It stung. 

It stung that despite having every chance to stay away, to turn his back, to lay down and die, despite the more than tempting chance to have everything he ever wanted back in his arms, Curt had kept his loyalties, and he hadn’t been dealt a fair hand for that.

He had spent so long pretending all the slights and issues had just been the rough edges of his pride catching on his orders, just because it was easier than having to face all the things he had spent how entire career carefully ignoring.

He had been set up. 

Curt pretended not to hear the whispers behind him. He did know. Owen had _always_ been right. 

He took another deep breath. 

It couldn’t matter. It’s what he had told Owen, and nothing had changed since then, not really. Curt knew what he was, and he would rather be a weapon in hands he thought he knew. He couldn’t walk away, not when there was still a chance he could help. Not when he could still be useful.

He couldn’t afford to doubt now. He could feel himself slipping, and he knew how dangerous that could be. 

Curt had never once doubted that what he was doing was right. He had believed. He had _known_ that they had been doing something important. He had known ever since he was a child that he wanted to be one of the good guys. A hero. 

He wasn’t so sure that there were good guys _at all_ anymore. 

He felt a chill down his spine and shivered. 

He couldn’t afford to think like that. 

He couldn’t afford to stop believing. He had to know he had been right, that all of this had been justified. He had to put his faith in the agency, that whatever they were doing, whatever plans they had… he had to believe they were better than Chimera.

He needed to stay balanced, to be focused. He had to believe in _something_ , or he would lose his mind more than he already had.

He needed to feel safe again. He needed his confidence back. He needed something normal. 

He needed…

He needed to find Owen. 

Curt shivered again, straightening his jacket. Finding Chimera, hunting the bad guys, searching for Owen, and keeping it all quiet so no one caught on to exactly why he kept going.

That was normal. That would be safe. 

It was the only thing he could do, now. 

He had a world to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we love a man in denial! we love the doubt! we love the horror inherent in the reveal of the injustices and crimes perpetuated by the american govt in the name of freedom! theres a whole lot i can say about what happens from here and it gets absolutely insane!
> 
> If you wanna talk sequels with me, message me on tumblr @orthax. It's an even bigger monster than this by far, and I can't make promises about it, but I do have a lot of snippets in my head I'm more than willing to talk about.


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